^■i&M\ 


JEWISH  CONTRIBUTIONS  TO 
CIVILIZATION 

AN    ESTIMATE 


JEWISH  CONTRIBUTIONS 
TO  CIVILIZATION 


AN    ESTIMATE 


BY 


JOSEPH  JACOBS 


Philadelphia 

The  Jewish  Publication  Society  of  America 

1919 


Copyright,  1919 

BY 

The  Jewish  Publication  Society  of  America 


DS 

113 

J15, 


PREFATORY  STATEMENT 


Joseph  Jacobs  was  a  thinker  and  writer  of 
unusual  breadth  and  versatility.  Among  the  sub- 
jects to  which  he  gave  his  attention  as  early  as  1886 
was  the  comparative  distribution  of  Jewish  ability, 
as  the  result  of  researches  he  had  undertaken  in 
association  with  Sir  Francis  Galton.  The  present 
work  was  the  natural  outcome  of  these  studies 
which  appeared  in  the  Journal  of  the  Anthro- 
pological Institute  and  were  afterwards  republished 
as  Studies  in  Jewish  Statistics,  1891. 

Dr.  Jacobs  at  the  time  intended  to  write  a  com- 
prehensive work,  entitled  "The  Jewish  Race — A 
Study  in  National  Character,"  in  sixty-seven  chap- 
ters, the  outline  of  which  was  printed  privately  in 
London,  1889.  Unfortunately  he  never  went  any 
further  with  this  plan.  Similarly  his  idea  of  an  even 
more  ambitious  work,  "European  Ideals — A  Study 
in  Origins,"  did  not  go  beyond  the  outline  which  ap- 
peared in  191 1.  It  was  perhaps  his  occupation 
with  this  general  subject  which  again  turned  his 
thought  to  Jewish  contributions  to  European 
civilization.  This  subject  engaged  the  attention  of 
Dr.  Jacobs  during  his  last  years,  and,  while  he  did 
not  live  to  complete  the  work,  it  is  fortunate  that 
he  at  least  left  the  first  of  the  three  books  he  had  in 

3 


PREFATORY    STATEMENT 

mind  in  such  form  that  it  can  be  published  without 
change.  One  of  its  chapters  appeared  in  the  first 
volume  of  the  Menorah  Journal,  December,  19 15 
(pp.  298-308),  under  the  title  "Liberalism  and 
the  Jews." 

The  careful  reader  will  notice  that  the  Intro- 
duction and  various  parts  of  the  book  show  the 
polished  style  of  the  master,  while  here  and  there 
the  absence  of  his  revising  hand  is  keenly  felt. 
Nevertheless,  the  brilliant  mind,  the  wide  reading, 
and  the  broad  information  of  the  author  are  mani- 
fest everywhere,  and  his  calmness  and  objectivity  of 
judgment  will  make  this,  his  last  work,  a  valuable 
contribution,  not  only  to  Jewish  literature,  but  to 
the  history  of  modern  civilization. 

Joseph  Jacobs  was  not  an  apologete — his  wish 
was  to  point  out  the  share  of  the  Jews  in  the 
world's  progress.  His  occupation  with  the  gen- 
eral subject  had  convinced  him  that  the  part  played 
by  the  Jews  had  never  been  adequately  ac- 
knowledged. On  the  other  hand,  he  was  careful  to 
bring  forward  no  claims  which  could  not  be  sub- 
stantiated by  solid  facts.  It  is  a  matter  of  deepest 
regret  that  he  was  Hot  to  finish  his  task  and  to 
bring  the  later  chapters  to  the  high  level  of  the 
Introduction.  Let  us  be  sincerely  thankful  for 
what  we  have. 

As  stated  in  his  Introduction,  Dr.  Jacobs  had 
planned  to  divide  this  work,  dealing  with  Jewish 

4 


PREFATORY    STATEMENT 

contributions  to  European  civilization,  into  three 
books.  In  the  first  book,  entitled  "Jews  of  the 
Past,"  he  intended  to  dwell  upon  Jewish  achieve- 
ment in  the  various  fields  of  research  during  the 
past  two  thousand  years  and  to  show  that  the  Jews 
have  made  themselves  a  constituent  element  of 
that  civilization  to  which  they  are  heirs  equally 
with  other  nations,  creeds,  and  peoples.  The  sec- 
ond book  was  to  be  devoted  to  the  evaluation  of 
the  contributions  of  individual  Jews  to  modern 
European  culture  in  the  immediate  past  and  pres- 
ent. The  third  book  was  to  determine  the  value 
of  Jews  in  the  modern  cultural  State  and  thus  meet 
the  question  raised  by  the  modern  higher  anti- 
Semites  who,  in  consonance  with  their  mediaeval 
ideals,  are  opposed  to  Jewish  influence  in  the 
Church-State  which  they  would  like  to  see  revived. 

When,  in  January,  1916,  Dr.  Jacobs  died,  this 
task  had  been  but  partially  accomplished.  Book  I 
was  practically  ready  for  publication,  though,  had 
the  author  lived,  he  would  undoubtedly  have  sub- 
jected many  parts  to  a  thorough  revision.  Of  Book 
II  he  left  notes,  which  would  have  served  him  as 
an  outline.  These  notes  show  the  masterly  fashion 
and  the  thoroughness  with  which  he  had  intended 
to  treat  this  important  subject.  Nothing  has  been 
found  of  Book  III. 

Book  I,  being  complete  in  itself,  is  herewith 
offered  to  the  public,  with  the  express  statement  that 


PREFATORY    STATEMENT 

it  has  not  been  altered  in  word  or  fact.  The  author 
embodied  in  it  a  wealth  of  knowledge  and  informa- 
tion, accumulated  during  a  busy  and  energetic  life, 
and  the  arguments  are  marshalled  with  the  bril- 
liancy characteristic  of  Dr.  Jacobs.  It  may  indeed 
be  said  that  the  question  raised  by  the  higher  anti- 
Semites,  which  was  to  be  dealt  with  in  the  last  book, 
has  been  adequately  answered  in  the  present 
volume. 

During  the  last  few  years  the  political  situation 
in  many  European  countries  has  undergone  radical 
changes,  and  it  is  therefore  natural  that  some  of  the 
statements  in  this  book  should  appear  obsolete — 
such  as  the  numerous  references  to  the  treatment 
of  the  Jews  in  Russia  under  conditions  which  have 
since  been  materially  changed. 

January,  19 19. 


CONTENTS 


chapter  page 

Prefatory  Statement 3 

Introduction  :  The  Higher  Anti-Semitism 9 

I.    The  People  of  the  Book 61 

II.    The  Church  and  the  Jews 90 

III.  Jews  Become  Europeans 114 

IV.  Medieval  Jews  as  Intellectual  Intermediaries...   138 
V.     Influence  of  Jewish  Thought  in  the  Middle  Ages  164 

VI.    Jews  and  Commerce 190 

VII.    Jews  and  Capitalism 218 

Vila.    Excursus  on  Sombart 247 

VIII.    The  Break-down  of  the  Church  Empire 268 

IX,    Jews  and  Liberalism 293 

Index 325 


INTRODUCTION 

The  Higher  Anti-Semitism 

There  is  among  the  peoples  of  the  world  one 
which  has  preserved  its  individuality  throughout 
the  ages  with  remarkable  persistence.  This  peo- 
ple is  among  the  nations,  and  of  them,  but  yet 
in  some  way  apart  from  them.  Up  to  a  time 
within  the  memory  of  men  still  living,  members 
of  this  people  were  set  apart  as  unworthy  to 
possess  all  the  rights  of  citizenship  in  all  lands 
in  which  they  dwelt;  even  at  the  present  day,  a 
majority  of  them  are  still  debarred  from  the 
higher  rights  of  human  beings.  The  only  excuse 
or  explanation  for  this  discrimination  against 
them  was  that  they  refused  to  bow  down  in  the 
House  of  Rimmon,  to  worship  strange  gods,  and 
to  give  up  their  way  of  thinking  about  the  high- 
est things  which  had  approved  itself  as  right 
and  true  to  their  fathers.  Rather  than  abandon 
that  faith  they  have,  for  the  past  millennium  and 
a  half,  suffered  continuously  contumely  and  moral 


INTRODUCTION 

segregation,  and  from  time  to  time  torture  and 
even  death,  while  at  successive  periods  they  have 
been  obliged  to  shake  off  the  soil  of  their  native 
land  and  seek  refuge  in  other  countries  which 
for  the  time  were  less  intolerant.  These  men 
are  known  by  the  name  of  Jews. 

'Tis  a  little  people,  but  it  has  done  great 
things.  When  in  the  land  in  which  It  first  came 
to  national  consciousness,  it  created  a  concep- 
tion of  the  Highest  Being  of  the  universe,  which 
has  been  adopted  in  essence  by  the  foremost 
races  of  humanity.  It  had  but  a  precarious  hold 
on  a  few  crags  and  highlands  between  the  desert 
and  the  deep  sea,  yet  its  thinkers  and  sages  with 
eagle  vision  took  into  their  thought  the  destinies 
of  all  humanity,  and  rang  out  in  clarion  voice 
a  message  of  hope  to  the  down-trodden  of  all 
races.  Claiming  for  themselves  and  their  peo- 
ple the  duty  and  obligations  of  a  true  aristoc- 
racy, they  held  forth  to  the  peoples  ideals  of 
a  true  democracy  founded  on  right  and  justice. 
Their  voices  have  never  ceased  to  re-echo  around 
the  world,  and  the  greatest  things  that  have 
been  done  to  raise  men's  lot  have  been  done 
always  in  the  spirit,  often  in  the  name,  of  the 
Hebrew  prophets. 

10 


INTRODUCTION 

Nor  did  their  beneficial  activities  cease  when 
they  were  torn  away  from  their  own  land  by 
all-powerful  Rome.  For  nearly  two  thousand 
years  they  have  taken  their  share  in  all  the 
movements  that  have  made  the  modern  Euro- 
pean man.  At  times  they  have  helped  to  spread 
culture  from  one  nation  to  another;  at  others, 
they  have  helped  to  light  it  anew  in  a  fresh 
land.  On  some  occasions  they  have  even  been 
leaders  in  these  movements,  but  mostly  they  have 
been  content  to  take  their  share  in  the  cultural 
development  of  their  fellow-men,  contributing  to 
it  by  the  qualities  which  their  unique  position 
among  the  nations  had  developed  in  them.  In 
the  intricate  warp  and  woof  of  civilization  Jewish 
threads  have  been  at  all  times  constituent  parts 
of  the  pattern,  and  to  attempt  to  remove  or  un- 
ravel them  would  destroy  the  whole  design.  By 
these  contributions  they  have  earned  their  right 
to  continue  to  work  for  the  European  culture  that 
they  have  helped  to  develop. 

Yet,  though  the  Jews  have  taken  their  due 
share  in  the  culture  and  economic  development 
of  the  nations  among  whom  they  dwelt,  they 
have  been  pursued  by  hatred  and  persecution 
throughout   the    Diaspora.      The   origins   of   this 

11 


INTRODUCTION 

Jew-hatred  and  antipathy  are  rather  obscure. 
All  Imperialistic  systems  necessarily  tend  toward 
toleration  of  the  different  creeds  of  the  divergent 
races,  which  they  weld  into  empires.  Yet  we 
find  traces  of  antipathy  to  Jews  in  the  three 
great  ancient  empires,  Persian,  Hellenistic, 
Roman,  as  reflected  in  the  Book  of  Esther,  the 
Books  of  Maccabees,  and  in  Josephus  against 
Apion.  Other  aliens  became  natives  after  a 
couple  of  generations;  other  enslaved  captives 
became  freedmen,  and  their  children  full  citizens; 
other  religious  cults  were  regarded  as  "licit"  in 
the  Persian,  in  the  Hellenistic,  and  in  the  Roman 
empires;  other  races  or  sections  were  permitted 
to  be  autonomous  w^ithin  limits  if  only  they  pro- 
vided their  due  quota  of  taxes  and  recruits.  The 
Jews  alone  stood  out  and  apart  from  the  nations 
among  whom  they  settled,  and  were  regarded 
with  disfavor  by  the  ruling  classes  and,  as  a 
consequence,  with  hatred  or  contempt  by  the 
mob.  The  ancient  city-states  had  their  chief 
bond  of  union  in  the  common  worship  of  the 
local  deity,  and  no  Jew,  while  he  remained  a 
Jew,  could  share  in  this  worship.  Other  citi- 
zens, together  with  this  civic  cult,  could  combine 
adhesion    to     widespread    national     or    imperial 

12 


INTRODUCTION 

deities;  the  Jew  alone  worshipped  One  God.  He 
was  the  sole  exception  to  the  increasing  tendency 
of  the  ancient  world  to  syncretize  local,  national, 
and  imperial  deities  into  one  Pantheon. 

It  is  probable,  however,  that  there  was  much 
less  anti-Semitism  among  the  peoples  of  antiq- 
uity than  might  appear  from  the  scanty  records 
of  Jew-hatred,  which  consist  mainly  of  con- 
temptuous or  inimical  references  by  satirists  like 
Juvenal,  or  embittered  partisans  like  Tacitus. 
Men  cannot  live  together  in  the  common  occu- 
pations of  every-day  life  without  engendering 
kindly  feelings  of  communion.  The  wide  spread 
of  Jewish  propagandism  in  the  early  Roman 
empire,  of  which  there  is  increasing  evidence. 
Is  sufficient  proof  of  the  friendly  bonds  between 
Jew  and  Gentile.  The  quick  spread  of  Chris- 
tianity among  the  resulting  proselytes  was  a 
striking  result  of  these  friendly  relations.^  But 
for  the  action  of  the  Church  these  assimilative 
tendencies  would  doubtless  have  continued  till 
Jews  would  have  been  distinguished   from  their 

*  The  map  of  the  early  Christian  churches  attached  to  the 
seventh  volume  of  Renan,  Orig'tnes  du  Christiatiisme,  is  still 
the  best  representation  of  the  Jewish  Diaspora  of  the  second 
century. 

13 


INTRODUCTION 

fellow-citizens  only  by  a  difference  of  creed  and 
religious  practice. 

Anti-Semitism  indeed  throughout  the  ages  has 
been  forced  from  above  downwards  as  a  part 
of  political  or  ecclesiastical  policy.  The  mob 
easily  takes  up  State  or  Church  cries  without 
fully  appreciating  their  bearing.  Though  per- 
sistent hatred  is  as  rare  as  perfect  love,  it  is 
easy  enough  to  arouse  ill-will  in  lower  natures 
whose  chief  excitement  in  life  is  afforded  by 
their  enmities.  We  find  an  instance  of  this  arti- 
ficial creation  of  anti-Jewish  feeling  in  the  earli- 
est record  of  anti-Semitism,  the  Book  of  Esther. 
As  interpreted  by  Dr.  Jacob  Hoschander,^  this 
romance  embodies  an  actual  stage  In  the  rela- 
tions between  the  Persian  Jews  and  the  Persian 
state.  While  willing  to  accept  the  monotheism 
of  Zoroaster,  they  refused  to  accept  the  syncreti- 
zing  religious  tendency  of  the  Persian  Imperialists, 
and  were  thus  persecuted  as  "Little  Persians." 
Something  similar  seems  to  be  at  the  bottom  of 
the  conflict  with  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  who  evi- 
dently wished  the  Jews  not  so  much  to  give  up 
their   own   God   as   to   accept   the   Hellenic   gods 

[^  Je^vis/i  Quarterly  Review,  New  Series,  ix,  p.  1,  seq."] 
14 


INTRODUCTION 

in  addition  to  Him.  The  struggles  against  Rome 
under  Vespasian  and  Hadrian  were  of  a  more 
purely  national  character,  but,  according  to  Jew- 
ish tradition,  the  last  conflict  had  also  its  re- 
ligious aspects. 

Once,  however,  the  purely  national  conflict 
was  over,  there  was  no  reason  why  the  Jews 
should  not  have  amalgamated  with  other  races 
of  the  Roman  empire  in  all  respects  except  re- 
ligion. They  were,  indeed,  in  a  more  favor- 
able position  to  do  so  than  any  other  of  the 
multifarious  elements  which  constituted  the  em- 
pire of  Rome.  They  alone  could  worship  their 
God  wherever  they  resided;  their  creed  was  con- 
nected with  a  book  and  not  with  a  city  or  a 
land.  Hence  they  rapidly  acquired  citizenship 
throughout  the  empire,  and,  before  long,  reached 
the  final  distinction  of  acquiring  the  Jus  Hono- 
rum.  For  two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  between 
the  fall  of  Bethar  and  the  emeute  at  Alexandria 
under  St.  Cyril,  there  are  no  signs  of  popular 
antipathy  against  the  Jews  in  the  later  Roman 
empire.  So,  too,  in  Babylonia,  Jews  and  Gen- 
tiles lived  at  peace  for  eight  hundred  years  up 
to  the  persecution  of  Yezdegird  II.  These  in- 
stances  seem   to   prove   that    there    is   no    innate 

15 


INTRODUCTION 

tendency  to  anti-Semitism  among  the  peoples  un- 
less forced  from  above  downwards. 

But  all  these  assimilative  tendencies  were  at 
once  checked  when  the  Christian  Church  became 
dominant  in  the  later  Roman  empire.  The 
Christian  emperors  deliberately  deprived  the 
Jews  of  the  right  to  serve  the  State,  and  by  418 
they  were  excluded  from  all  public  employments 
that  could  in  any  way  give  them  authority  over 
true  believers.  While  their  synagogues  were 
allowed  to  remain  (though  no  new  ones  were 
to  be  built),  they  were  not  allowed,  under  pen- 
alty of  death,  to  make  converts  even  of  their 
slaves,  while  every  encouragement  was  given  to 
apostasy  from  Judaism.  These  signs  of  the  ill- 
favor  of  the  rulers  were  soon  interpreted  in  the 
usual  way  by  the  mob,  and  the  long  series  of 
Jewish  massacres  by  Christians  began  at  the 
beginning  of  the  fifth  century  at  Alexandria, 
instigated  by  the  bishop  St.  Cyril.  In  the  pagan 
empire  religion  was  but  a  department  of  the 
State;  In  the  Christian  empire  State  and  Church 
became  Identified,  and  the  principle  was  laid 
down  that  none  could  belong  fully  to  the  State 
who  was  not  a  true  member  of  the  State-Church. 
Henceforth  no  Jew,   while   he   remained  a   Jew, 

16 


INTRODUCTION 

could  have  full  citizenship  in  a  Christian  state; 
and  Israel  entered  into  a  spiritual  ghetto,  not  to 
emerge  for  a  millennium  and  a  half. 

Islam  borrowed  from  the  Church  the  theo- 
cratic principle,  and  even  bettered  the  instruction. 
The  unbeliever  was  to  be  put  to  the  sword,  or, 
if  one  of  the  "Peoples  of  the  Book"  (Jews,  Chris- 
tians, Sabaeans),  was  accorded  a  contemptuous 
and  degraded  tolerance.  Henceforth  both  Church 
and  Mosque  put  the  Jews  of  Christian  and 
Muslim  lands  outside  the  pale  of  citizenship. 
Under  the  Caliph  Omar,  Jews  were  ordered 
to  wear  a  distinctive  dress,  and  in  849  the  Emir 
Mutawakkil  emphasized  the  distinction  by  order- 
ing the  Jews  to  wear  a  badge  as  a  sign  of  in- 
famy. This  diabolic  expedient  was  adopted  by 
Innocent  III  at  the  Vatican  Council  of  12 15, 
and  henceforth  in  Islam  and  Christendom  the 
Jews  were  marked  out  as  objects  of  contempt 
and  degradation  whenever  they  went  forth 
among  their  fellow-countrymen.  At  the  same 
time  the  callings  for  which  they  were  eligible 
were  more  and  more  restricted,  till  at  length 
the  only  methods  by  which  they  could  earn 
their  living  were  disreputable  (usury,  pawn- 
broking,    peddling    second-hand    goods).      Every 

17 


INTRODUCTION 

Easter  the  pulpits  of  Christendom  resounded 
with  the  outcries  against  the  killers  of  Christ,  and 
soon  the  myth  of  the  "blood  accusation"  caused 
them  to  be  regarded  as  infra-human  by  the 
credulous  mob.  The  belief  that  they  were  af- 
fected by  a  mystic  curse  on  account  of  their 
non-belief  was  encouraged  by  the  Church  as 
affording  a  perpetual  object-lesson  of  the  terrible 
results  of  infidelity.  No  wonder  the  mob  from 
time  to  time  carried  into  terrific  deeds  the  broad 
hints  given  by  the  Church.  There  is  scarce  a 
city  of  Europe  whose  stones  have  not  been 
stained  by  the  blood  of  innocent  Jews  and  Jew- 
esses, slain  to  enhance  the  glory  of  the  Cross. 
But  the  important  thing  to  observe  is  that  all 
these  horrors  were  the  direct  result  of  the  de- 
liberate policy  of  the  Church  to  mark  out  the 
Jews  as  objects  of  hatred  and  degradation.  The 
anti-Semitism  of  the  Middle  Ages  came  from 
above  downwards;  it  was  no  natural  outcome  of 
the  clash  of  racial  tendencies  or  temperaments. 
Again  and  again  we  find  Jews  and  Christians 
joining  together  in  friendly  communion,  even  in 
common  sport,  the  great  equalizer  of  social  dis- 
tinctions.^ 

*  One  of  the  most  striking  examples  of  this  occurred  in  a  stag 
hunt  at  Colchester  in  1267,  which  I  have  described  in  Jeiuish 
Ideals,  pp.  225-33. 

18 


INTRODUCTION 

The  only  protection  found  by  the  Jews  against 
the  disabilities  imposed  upon  them  by  Church 
policy  was  afforded  by  the  royal  or  the  imperial 
power,  which  found  it  expedient  to  use  the  Jews 
as  indirect  tax-gatherers.  The  Church  set  its  face 
against  all  capitalism,  which  it  regarded  as 
"usury"  and  declared  to  be  infamous  and  un- 
christian. The  Jews,  unaffected  by  the  Church 
fulminations,  were  tacitly  allowed  to  lend  money 
with  the  understanding  that,  in  the  last  resort, 
the  money  thus  accumulated  was  at  the  disposal 
of  the  king,  who  thus  became  the  arch-usurer 
of  his  realm.  The  Jews  thus  became  buffers  in 
the  mediaeval  state  between  the  conflicting  forces 
of  king,  nobles,  and  municipalities,  and  whenever 
the  position  of  any  of  these  forces  became  se- 
cure the  Jews  were  expelled  as  unnecessary  and 
expensive.  In  this  way  they  were  expelled  from 
England  In  1290,  France  in  139 1,  and  Spain 
In  1492,  while  in  Germany  and  Italy,  where  the 
struggle  of  the  feudal  forces  was  indeterminate, 
the  expulsions  were  sporadic.  Meanwhile  In 
Eastern  Europe  a  complex  political  federation 
had  arisen  to  which  the  principle  of  a  Church- 
State  could  not  be  radically  applied.  In  the 
year  1386  the  duchy  of  Lithuania  was  joined  to 

19 


INTRODUCTION 

the  kingdom  of  Poland  by  a  dynastic  alliance 
with  the  Jagellon  dukes.  Now  Lithuania  was  a 
member  of  the  Greek-Orthodox  Church,  whereas 
Poland  had  been  Catholic  for  nearly  five  cen- 
turies. It  was,  therefore,  impossible  to  apply 
the  principle  of  a  uniform  creed  to  the  new  fed- 
eration, and  for  the  first  time  since  Constantine 
the  principle  that  citizenship  depended  upon  ex- 
act uniformity  with  the  State-Church  was  broken 
through.  The  Jews  found,  therefore,  an  asylum 
in  the  Jagellon  kingdom,  and  to  this  day  the 
Israelites  of  those  districts  retain  the  German 
dialect  (Yiddish)  which  they  brought  with  them 
Into  Poland  and  Lithuania  In  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries. 

A  somewhat  similar  condition  of  affairs  was 
produced  in  Central  Europe  by  the  Reformation. 
Here  the  churches  and  monarchs  had  to  face 
the  fact  of  divergence  of  creed  among  the  in- 
habitants of  a  given  area.  For  a  time  the  old 
principle  of  a  State-Church  was  kept  alive  by 
the  curious  expedient  of  making  the  people  con- 
form to  the  religion  of  their  ruler  {Ciijits  regio, 
ejus  religio) .  But  this  attempt  at  establishing 
a  dynastic  Church  soon  broke  down,  and  the  rulers 
of  North  Europe  had  to  take  into  account  the 

20 


INTRODUCTION 

fact  that  some  at  least  of  their  subjects  refused 
to  be  cooped  up  in  the  cloisters  of  the  national 
Church.  Anabaptists  and  Jesuits,  Brownists  and 
Quakers,  made  the  question  of  religious  tolera- 
tion a  matter  of  practical  politics,  and  Jews  no 
longer  enjoyed  the  monopoly  of  exclusion  from 
the  national  Church. 

Slowly  the  idea  grew  of  a  citizenship  apart 
from  participation  in  the  rites  of  the  national 
Church.  The  conception  gradually  advanced  that 
loyalty  to  the  State  was  the  primal  duty  of 
a  citizen,  and  not  conformity  to  the  tenets  of 
the  State-Church,  The  internecine  struggle  of 
Huguenots  and  Leaguers  in  France  brought  out 
the  first  enunciation  of  the  principle  of  religious 
toleration  by  the  middle  party  of  the  Politiques.^ 
From  their  time  onward  the  principle  has  re- 
ceived wider  and  wider  development  in  the 
thought  of  Hobbes  and  Spinoza,  Locke  and 
Hoadley,  Voltaire  and  Rousseau,  and  broader 
and  broader  application  in  practice  in  the  Holland 
of  William  the  Silent,  the  England  of  William 
III,    the    Prussia    of    Frederick    the    Great,    and 

*  See  Figgis,  From  Gerson  to  Grotius,  chapter  iv.  It  is,  perhaps, 
worth  while  remarking  that  the  chief  intellectual  voices  of  the 
Politiques,  Jean  Bodin,  Michel  I'Hopital,  Michel  de  Montaigne, 
had  each  a  Jewish  parent 

21 


INTRODUCTION 

the  Austria  of  Joseph  II.  At  last,  in  the 
cataclysm  of  the  French  Revolution  and  in  the 
military  state  of  Napoleon,  with  its  "carriere 
ouverte,"  the  principle  was  applied  to  the  Jews, 
who  were  henceforth  regarded,  in  increasing 
measure,  as  full  citizens  of  their  native  states. 
The  process  of  emancipation  was  a  protracted 
one, and  was  not  gained  without  doughty  struggles 
of  the  spiritjCarried  on  exclusively  by  the  Liberals 
of  Europe,  mainly  during  the  years  from  1848 
to  1870.  From  Waterloo  to  Sedan  the  Liberals 
of  Europe  were  on  the  side  of  the  Jews,  and 
the  Jews,  as  a  matter  of  principle  and  grati- 
tude, on  the  side  of  the  Liberals;  at  the  latter 
date  all  the  countries  of  Western  Europe  had 
emancipated  their  Jews,  and  the  principle  of  the 
unity  of  Church  and  State  had  thereby  been 
practically  abolished.  Only  one  great  State  of 
Europe,  the  Empire  of  All  the  Russias,  still 
retains  the  mediaeval  principle  of  a  Church-State, 
even  to  the  present  day,  and  its  Jews — the  de- 
scendants of  the  refugees  of  Poland-Lithuania — 
are  still  treated  as  the  ecclesiastical  helots  of  a 
mediaeval  theocracy. 

While  the  principles  and  practice  of  religious 
toleration   were    only   applied    to    the    close    con- 

22 


INTRODUCTION 

fines  of  Christian  heterodoxy,  the  condition  of 
the  Jews,  either  before  the  law  or  in  public 
opinion,  underwent  no  amelioration.  Indeed,  it 
practically  reached  its  nadir  at  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  But  as  soon  as  some  of  the  leading 
spirits  of  Europe  began  to  plead  openly  for  a 
recognition  of  Jewish  rights  to  manhood  and 
citizenship,  improvement  became  discernible  both 
in  legislation  and  in  social  recognition.  Crom- 
well's liberal  act  in  readmitting  the  Jews  to  Eng- 
land, the  abortive  Jewish  Naturalization  Bill  of 
1753,  Von  Dohm's  plea,  and  the  Abbe  Gregoire's 
memoir,  Lessing's  noble  Nathan  der  Weise, 
and  Macaulay's  resonant  speeches  had  a  cumu- 
lative effect  upon  the  minds  and  consciences 
of  Englishmen,  Frenchmen,  and  Germans,  who 
began  to  work  for  and  with  their  Jewish  fellow- 
citizens  in  order  that  they  might  take  their  place 
In  the  national  progress.  In  the  "sixties"  and 
"seventies"  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  seemed 
as  If  the  sempiternal  antagonism  between  Jew 
and  Christian  had  been  at  last  allayed,  and  that 
henceforth  they  would  work  side  by  side  without 
conflict  or  contention  for  the  common  good  of 
their  respective  states. 

23 


INTRODUCTION 

But  side  by  side  with  the  liberal  tendencies  of 
the  mid-nineteenth  century  there  has  been  a 
recrudescence  of  the  earlier  principle  of  the  me- 
diaeval Church-State  and  the  feudal  subordina- 
tion of  classes  which  accompanied  it.  Immedi- 
ately after  Waterloo  came  the  Reaction  with  its 
Holy  Alliance,  and  the  Jews  of  mid-Europe  were 
at  once  thrown  back  into  mediaeval  darkness, 
while  the  Hep-hep  riots  of  1819  showed  that 
the  mob  were  as  ready  as  ever  to  reflect  the 
changed  attitude  of  their  rulers.  The  Romantic 
movement  in  French  and  German  letters,  the 
Oxford  movement  in  the  Anglican  Church,  the 
revival  of  Ultramontanism  in  the  European 
Areopagus  combined  to  bring  back  the  mediaeval 
ideal  of  the  Church-State  to  the  more  conserva- 
tive spirits  of  Europe.  Meanwhile  the  feudal 
forces  that  had  so  long  ruled  Europe,  already 
disrupted  by  the  libertarian  and  equalitarian 
tendencies  of  the  French  Revolution,  found  their 
position  further  threatened  by  the  Industrial 
Revolution  and  the  rise  to  power  of  a  middle 
class  unknown  to  the  Almanach  de  Gotha,  This 
led  them  to  band  themselves  anew  in  defence 
of  king  and  Church,  the  only  forces  that  could 
prop    up    their    tottering   supports.      Thus    arose 

24 


INTRODUCTION 

the  new  Conservatism  headed,  curiously  enough, 
in  England  and  Prussia,  respectively,  by  two 
converted  Jews,  Benjamin  Disraeli  and  Friedrich 
Julius  Stahl.  The  Clericals  of  Europe  hastened 
to  ally  themselves  with  the  renovated  aristocracy 
who  still  retained  their  monopolistic  hold  on  the 
military  and  official  posts,  even  of  the  Liberal 
Governments  of  Western  Europe.  Thus  the  way 
was  paved  for  the  Counter-Revolution  which  was 
to  dominate  Europe  after  Sedan,  and  incidentally 
to  raise  again  the  spectre  of  Jew-hatred  in  a  new 
form. 

During  the  period  between  1848  and  1870 
the  map  of  Europe  was  recast  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  new  principle  of  nationality.  For 
nearly  four  centuries  states  had  been  formed  out 
of  incongruous  elements,  the  only  bond  of  unity 
in  many  cases  being  given  by  the  common  mon- 
arch. States  were  regarded  as,  strictly  speaking, 
appanages  of  the  Crown,  and  passed  from  fam- 
ily to  family  as  the  result  of  dynastic  alliances. 
The  felicitous  marriages  of  the  Hapsburgs, 
which  gave  them  the  Holy  Roman  empire 
and  the  Austrian  conglomerate  of  nationalities, 
formed  a  model  for  all  the  monarchs  of  Europe, 
and    kingdoms    were    recklessly    formed    out    of 

25 


INTRODUCTION 

discordant  nationalities  by  the  simple  process  of 
royal  marriages.  In  process  of  time,  however, 
this  subordination  to  the  same  overlord  welded 
some  of  these  conglomerates  into  real  nations 
with  common  speech,  common  customs,  common 
law,  and  common  ideals.  With  the  clash  of 
conflict  in  the  Napoleonic  era  this  communion 
of  feeling  and  interest  sprung  into  national  con- 
sciousness, and  in  Spain,  in  Russia,  and  in  Prus- 
sia, Napoleon  dashed  himself  to  pieces  in  the 
conflict  with  the  new  force.  Henceforth  those 
who  spoke  the  same  tongue  and  had  the  memory 
of  the  same  historic  deeds,  suffered  or  wrought 
in  common  by  themselves  or  their  ancestors, 
claimed  to  be  governed  in  common  according  to 
their  own  ideals.  This  mighty  force  led  to  the 
unification  of  Italy  and  of  Germany  and  to  the 
still  unsatisfied  aspirations  of  a  United  Ireland 
and  of  a  United  Poland.  By  a  natural  mytho- 
poeic  tendency  this  communion  of  language  and 
Interest  of  memories  and  ideals  was  thought  to 
be  the  result  of  common  race  or  ancestry.  His- 
torians and  litterateurs,  after  the  fashion  of  their 
kind,  reflected  in  ingenious  works  this  imagina- 
tive national  genealogy,  and  on  both  sides  of 
the    Rhine    real    literary    ingenuity    traced    the 

26 


INTRODUCTION 

course  of  history  to  the  fountain-heads  of 
race.  Modern  anthropology  has  entirely  under- 
mined this  misconception,  showing  that  through- 
out Europe  there  has  been  a  constant  inter- 
mingling of  races  since  the  Bronze  Period  of 
three  thousand  years  ago.  But  it  takes  time  for 
scientific  conclusions  to  percolate  through  the 
people,  especially  when  they  conflict  with  national 
or  local  vanities.  In  the  meanwhile  the  op- 
posing chauvinisms  of  Michelet  and  Dahn,  of 
Coulanges  and  Waitz,  had  aroused  the  animosities 
of  the  Teutonic  against  the  Latin  races,  which  found 
their  culmination  in  the  Franco-Prussian  War. 

The  result  of  that  war  made  the  new  German 
empire  the  arbiter  of  Europe  and  Otto  von 
Bismarck  the  all-powerful  influence  within  it. 
During  the  first  stage  of  his  career  as  Imperial 
Chancellor  (1871-1877)  he  had  to  work  hand 
in  hand  with  the  National  Liberal  party,  to 
which  all  German  Jews  belonged,  and  among 
the  chief  leaders  of  which  were  Eduard  Lasker 
and  Ludwig  Bamberger.  One  heard  nothing 
of  anti-Semitism  in  those  days  either  in  Germany 
or  in  the  rest  of  Western  Europe.  But  in  1878 
Bismarck  broke  loose  from  the  National  Lib- 
erals, and  allied  himself  with  the  Conservatives 

27 


INTRODUCTION 

and  Centre  with  whom  his  sympathies  as  noble, 
as  Junker,  as  landed  proprietor,  and  as  authori- 
tarian were  much  more  thorough.  Henceforth 
his  chief  opponents  in  the  Reichstag  were  the 
National  Liberals  with  Lasker  at  their  head, 
and  he  directly  encouraged  the  revival  of  Jew- 
hatred  in  order  to  discredit  them.  Virulent 
articles  and  pamphlets  appeared  in  his  "reptile 
press,"  and  he  even  permitted  the  Court  Chap- 
lain, Adolf  Stoecker,  to  disgrace  his  position  by 
direct  attacks  on  the  Jews  in  pulpit  and  plat- 
form. Modern  anti-Semitism  was  thus  "made 
in  Germany"  by  the  direct  encouragement  of 
Otto  von  Bismarck. 

This  newer  form  of  Jew-hatred  could  not  be 
ostensibly  founded  on  religious  prejudice.  States- 
men had  had  sufficient  experience  of  the  political 
evils  arising  from  religious  animosities  from  the 
time  of  the  Wars  of  Religion  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  newer  doctrines  of  race  and  na- 
tionality afforded  a  seemingly  safer  basis  of 
operations.  Renan,  the  most  potent  literary  in- 
fluence in  Europe,  had  tickled  European  van- 
ity by  a  contrasted  characterization  of  Aryans 
and  Semites,  in  which  the  latter  were  declared 
to   be   inferior   to   the    former   in   all   the   higher 

28 


INTRODUCTION 

elements  of  civilization,  even  In  religion.  The 
enemies  of  the  Jews  eagerly  applied  this  highly 
Imaginative  account  of  the  Semitic  genius  to  the 
Jewish  race.  They  accordingly  gave  the  name 
of  "anti-Semitism"  to  their  protests  against  any 
continuance  or  Increase  of  Jewish  influence  In 
modern  nations.  Further  virus  was  added  to 
the  movement  by  the  remarkable  economic  de- 
velopment'of  Germany  In  which  Jews,  by  their 
commercial  training  and  International  relations, 
took  so  prominent  a  part.  They  often  outdis- 
tanced their  Gentile  competitors,  avoiding  the 
dangers  of  the  new  banking  (the  "Krach"  of 
1873);  the  realities  of  commercial  envy  and 
rivalry  were  thus  added  to  the  artificial  Incite- 
ments of  racial  animosity  and  nationalistic  chau- 
vinism. 

In  two  other  directions  the  particular  condi- 
tions of  Prussia — the  dominant  partner  In  the 
new  German  empire — enabled  the  Jew-haters  to 
bar  them  out  of  two  of  the  highest  careers. 
Tradition  has  always  closely  connected  the  offi- 
cers of  the  Prussian  army  with  the  nobility,  who 
claim  the  right  to  consider  the  officers'  mess  as 
a  species  of  club.  Further,  the  Church  In  Prus- 
sia is  "estabhshed,"  something  on  the  same  lines 

29 


INTRODUCTION 

as  the  Anglican;  so  that  in  its  way  Prussia  Is  a 
Church-State  or,  as  it  is  technically  termed,  a 
Cultur-Staat,  in  which  the  Protestant  Lutheran 
religion  is  regarded  as  an  essential  and  indis- 
pensable part  of  the  culture  involved.  The 
Prussian  universities  are  regarded  as  special 
organs  of  the  Cultiir-Staat,  and  full  admission  to 
the  faculties  (which  again  were  regarded  as 
professional  clubs)  Is  restricted  to  members  of 
the  Established  Church.  Thus  In  Prussia,  Jews, 
in  the  later  stage  of  the  Bismarck  regime,  were 
rigidly  excluded  from  the  officers'  messes  of  the 
army  and  the  professional  chairs  of  the  universi- 
ties. The  prestige  of  Prussia  In  the  German 
empire  caused  its  example,  in  these  regards,  to 
be  followed  more  or  less  fully  throughout  the 
empire. 

This  specifically  Prussian  form  of  antipathy 
to  Jews  was  voiced  by  Heinrlch  von  Treitschke, 
the  head  representative  of  what  has  been  termed 
the  Prussian  school  of  historians.  He  injected 
Into  his  German  history,  which  earned  him  the 
title  of  the  German  Macaulay,  the  Ideals  of  the 
Junker  party,  which  aimed  at  the  predominance 
of  the  Conservative  noble  and  landed  classes  of 
Prussia   throughout   Germany.      He   saw   In   the 

30 


INTRODUCTION 

Jews  the  typical  representatives  of  the  Liberal 
mercantile  classes,  and  attacked  their  influence 
in  the  most  virulent  terms.  In  particular  he 
regarded  the  Liberal  tendencies  of  Heine  and 
Borne  as  specially  corrupting,  and  indulged  in 
unworthy  and  undignified  language  about  their 
characters.  He  was  opposed  by  Mommsen  and 
Virchow,  the  two  noblest  voices  of  German  lib- 
eralism ;  but  his  views  have  had  immense  influ- 
ence on  the  official  world  of  Germany,  and  have 
found  their  latest  echo  in  the  pages  of  Cham- 
berlain. They  are  specially  interesting  as  show- 
ing the  influence  of  historic  and  political  tenden- 
cies on  an  individual  publicist.  Treitschke  seems 
to  be  expressing  individual  views;  he  is  really 
voicing  partisan  theories.^ 

The  evident  encouragement  given  to  this  re- 
crudescence of  Jew-hatred  in  its  new  form  by 
Germany,  which  formed  the  model  for  the  re- 
construction of  most  of  the  European  states 
(even  including  France),  naturally  led  to  imi- 
tation in  less  developed  nations.     In  Austria  and 

^  It  is  rather  curious  to  find  German  ideals  defended  with  so 
much  heat  by  persons  with  names  like  Treitschke  (properly 
Treitschky)  and  Chamberlain — not  very  Germanic  names.  Simi- 
larly we  have  Englishry  defended  from  Jewry  by  a  gentleman 
of  the  un-English  name  Hilaire  Belloc. 

31 


INTRODUCTION 

Hungary,  politically  strong  allies  of  Germany, 
parties  were  actually  formed  to  urge  in  the  par- 
liaments of  these  countries  restrictions  on  Jewish 
political  and  even  civil  rights.  Somewhat  later 
in  France,  the  home  for  over  a  century  of  liberal 
thought,  anti-Semitic  voices  were  raised  among 
the  reactionary  parties  which  were  attempting  to 
restore  Monarchy  and  Clericalism.  Here  Jew- 
hatred  was  further  embittered  by  a  disastrous 
financial  experiment  of  the  reactionary  forces. 
Certain  clerical  financiers  had  Induced  the  Fau- 
bourg St.  Germain  to  entrust  Its  capital  to  a 
banking  organization  known  as  the  Union  Gene- 
rale,  which  was  to  replace  the  Rothschilds  as  the 
repository  of  Catholic  funds.  Unfortunately  the 
Union  failed,  and  the  impoverished  aristocracy 
were  led  to  see  the  cause  of  their  financial  ruin 
In  the  machinations  of  the  Jews.  At  the  same 
time  the  Jesuits  were  attempting  to  obtain  a 
monopoly  of  the  French  officers'  messes  for  their 
pupils.  In  the  Interests  of  a  monarchical  resto- 
ration, and  advocated,  after  the  Prussian  model, 
the  rejection  of  the  Jews  from  the  rank  of  officers. 
The  notorious  case  of  Captain  Dreyfus  was  the 
outcome  of  this,  and  finally  wrecked  the  clerical 
plot  to  get  control  of  the  army. 

32 


INTRODUCTION 

Meanwhile  in  Eastern  Europe  the  theoretical 
encouragement  thus  given  to  the  revival  of  Jew- 
hatred  by  the  Counter-Revolutionary  principles 
of  the  aristocratic,  militaristic,  and  Clerical  fac- 
tions of  North-western  Europe,  encouraged  by 
the  precept  and  example  of  Bismarck,  had  been 
translated  into  action  by  the  mob  of  Russia.  In 
that  country,  the  sole  survival  of  the  mediaeval 
Church-State  among  the  Governments  of  Europe, 
the  Jews,  regarded  as  a  legacy  from  old  Poland 
and  confined  within  the  ancient  limits  of  that 
kingdom,  were  marked  out  for  the  enmity 
of  the  populace  by  every  form  of  degrading 
disability.  At  the  death  of  the  Liberator  Czar 
Alexander  II,  In  1881,  the  excitement  of  the 
people  found  Its  vent  in  attacks  upon  the  Jews, 
which  were  encouraged  by  the  officials,  as  time 
was  thus  given  them  to  organize  the  Reaction 
which  then  took  shape.  The  widespread  sym- 
pathy aroused  for  the  Jewish  victims,  especially 
in  Anglo-Saxon  lands,  led  to  a  continuous  exodus 
from  the  Russian  house  of  bondage,  and  colonies 
of  Russian  Jews  began  to  spread  throughout 
the  civilized  world,  notably  adding  to  the  Jew- 
ish population  of  France,  England,  and  America 
(Germany    having    practically    closed    Its    doors 

33 


INTRODUCTION 

to  any  accession  from  Russia).  This  exodus 
added  a  new  element  to  whatever  relics  had  sur- 
vived of  the  older  anti-Jewish  prejudices  of  these 
lands.  Whereas  previously  they  had  become 
identified  in  every  respect  with  the  Sittlichkeit 
of  their  fellow-citizens,  while  preserving  their 
distinctive  religious  tenets  and  practices,  they 
were  now  once  more  regarded  as  aliens,  since 
a  large  number  of  them  were  no  longer  native- 
born.  Within  thirty  years  nearly  a  million  and 
a  half  Jews  from  Eastern  Europe  had  been 
added  to  the  third  of  a  million  already  settled 
in  these  three  countries,  many  of  whom  had 
themselves  been  born  elsewhere.  It  would  indeed 
be  surprising  if  so  large  a  transference  of  human 
beings  from  one  environment  to  others  entirely 
different  could  be  effected  without  producing  some 
signs  of  restiveness  in  the  countries  concerned. 
On  the  whole,  however,  the  Anglo-Saxon  coun- 
tries have  come  through  the  ordeal  with  a 
triumphant  vindication  of  their  essential  principles 
of  justice  and  liberalism.  Indeed  it  would  be 
difficult  for  either  to  act  otherwise.  England, 
as  the  head  of  an  empire  composed  of  mul- 
tifarious races  and  creeds,  could  not  logically 
take    discriminative   steps    against    any   one    creed 

34 


INTRODUCTION 

or  race.  America,  whose  greatness  is  founded 
upon  the  hospitable  welcome  she  has  given  to 
the  oppressed  or  adventurous  of  all  lands,  was 
only  acting  in  accordance  with  her  true  self  in 
affording  a  shelter  to  the  oppressed  Russian  and 
Roumanian  Jews. 

Yet  even  in  these  favored  lands  there  have 
been  some  signs  of  a  revival  of  anti-Jewish 
prejudice.  In  England  the  Alien  Act  of  1905 
was  almost  avowedly  directed  to  checking  Jewish 
immigration,  and  of  recent  years  a  few  utter- 
ances in  the  public  press  have  re-echoed  the 
anti-Semitic  sentiments  in  the  same  reactionary 
circles  as  on  the  Continent  of  Europe.  In 
America,  where  a  reversion  to  the  class  dis- 
tinctions of  Europe  is  making  itself  shown,  cer- 
tain restrictions  of  social  intercourse  with  Jews 
have  insinuated  themselves  in  summer  resorts, 
private  schools,  university  clubs,  and  even  in 
university  faculties.  It  is  possible  that  the  latter 
tendency  may  be  traced  to  the  indirect  influence 
of  the  Prussian  universities  which  have  been 
attended  by  so  many  American  professors. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  from  this  rough  sketch  of 
the  more  recent  phases  of  anti-Semitism  that  this 
is  due,  almost  entirely,  to  the  initiative  of  Prince 

35 


INTRODUCTION 

Bismarck  In  the  later  stage  of  his  policy.  But  its 
comparatively  wide  spread  proves  that  It  appeals 
to  certain  general  sentiments  that  have  to  be 
taken  Into  account.  Any  divergence  from  the  so- 
cial norm  to  which  men  are  accustomed  arouses 
their  antipathy  as  Implying  the  possibility  that 
their  own  thoughts  or  ways  are  not  the  best. 
"  'Ere's  a  stranger,  Bill;  'eave  'alf  a  brick  at  'im," 
was  Punch's  way  of  putting  this  feeling.  The 
Jew  differs  from  others  in  practices  and  beliefs 
with  regard  to  the  matters  which  men  still  con- 
sider the  most  fundamental  and  Important.  The 
more  rigid  among  them  refuse  commensallty  to 
their  Gentile  neighbors,  in  accordance  with  their 
dietary  laws,  and  thus  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
most  practical  form  of  social  communion.  Again 
they  are  endogamous,  and,  to  prevent  intermar- 
riage, have,  almost  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  put 
a  bar  upon  intercourse  between  their  young  peo- 
ple. In  addition  to  all  this,  as  has  been  shown 
above,  the  majority  of  Jews  in  western  lands  have 
again  become  aliens  owing  to  the  tyranny  of  Rus- 
sia. Finally,  the  crude  theories  of  race,  which 
had  so  much  to  do  with  the  creation  of  new  na- 
tionalities in  the  nineteenth  century,  have  now 
become   part   of   the   popular   consciousness,    and 


INTRODUCTION 

the  comparatively  easy  Identification  of  Jews  as 
of  a  diifferent  race  causes  these  various  divergen- 
cies to  become  conscious  at  every  point  of  social 
contact.  Other  communities  of  different  race  and 
religion  have  aroused  the  same  sort  of  antipathy: 
the  Scotch  In  England  In  Johnson's  time;  the 
Irish  In  America  before  the  Civil  War;  Germans 
In  Russia;  Poles  In  Germany;  Armenians  in 
Turkey — the  list  seems  Interminable.  Yet  many 
of  these  antipathies  have  died  away  when  not 
encouraged  by  the  higher  minds  of  the  dominant 
races;  and  it  should  be  the  hope  of  all  good  citi- 
zens that  the  appeal  of  Jew-hatred  to  the  lower 
minds  of  men  will  also  suffer  a  final  extinction. 

When  men  hate  one  another,  they  invariably 
defend  their  hatred  on  the  ground  of  high  prin- 
ciple. Even  the  wolf  of  fable  did  not  devour 
the  lamb  till  it  had  recited  various  excuses  for  its 
meal.  Similarly,  the  anti-Semite  of  to-day  alleges 
various  reasons  why  he  would  deny  the  Jew  the 
right  hand  of  fellowship  and  sometimes  even  the 
rights  of  citizenship.  I  propose,  In  the  follow- 
ing pages,  to  discuss  the  reasons  given  for  oppo- 
sition to  Jews,  so  far  as  these  are  based  upon 
real  principles  of  action  and  not  merely  instinc- 
tive  or  imitative   antipathies.      As   shown   above, 

37 


INTRODUCTION 

most  anti-Semites,  who  have  acted  on  any  kind  of 
principle,  have  been  either  members  of  the  privi- 
leged and  reactionary  classes  or  have  voiced  their 
views.  Regarding  the  Jews  as  inimical  to  the 
principles  which  they  consider  as  best  for  their 
respective  nations,  they  have  fought  strenuously 
against  what  they  term  Jewish  influence,  and,  as 
far  as  they  were  sincere,  were  perfectly  justified 
in  so  doing,  provided  they  fought  fairly.  The 
mere  fact  that,  in  combating  Jewish  influence,  they 
were  attempting  to  retain  or  further  their  own 
does  not,  in  the  slightest,  militate  against  their 
sincerity  or  justification.  The  very  essence  of  civ- 
ilized government  is  to  allow  each  interest  in  a 
state  to  exercise  as  much  influence  as  it  can  in 
favor  of  itself,  provided  this  cannot  be  shown  to 
be  to  the  detriment  of  the  whole.  So  far  as 
these  newer  forms  of  anti-Jewish  antipathy  are 
based  on  any  kind  of  principle,  they  may  be  said 
to  constitute  the  higher  anti-Semitism  as  con- 
trasted with  lower  forms,  which  are  merely  imi- 
tative, unreflective,  and  almost  entirely  the  out- 
come of  the  natural  tendency  to  hate  the  man  in 
any  way  different  from  ourselves,  which  is  part  of 
our  lower  nature. 

These  higher  anti-Semites  attack  the  Jews  from 
38 


INTRODUCTION 

different,  and  often  contradictory,  standpoints, 
which  it  may  be  as  well  to  enumerate  roughly. 
There  is,  first  and  forem.ost,  the  nationalistic 
school,  which  regards  the  Jews  as  both  alien  in 
origin  and  alien  in  spirit,  and  hence  a  disturbing 
element  of  the  national  ideals.  These  are  often 
joined  by  the  ultra-Conservatives,  who,  remem- 
bering the  recent  connection  of  Jews  with  Liber- 
alism, regard  them  as  typically  Liberal,  Certain 
sections  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  espe- 
cially the  Jesuits  and  Ultramontanes,  follow  in 
the  Jewish  question  that  rigid  consistency  of  pol- 
icy, which  is  the  admiration  of  their  enemies  and 
the  despair  of  their  friends.  In  addition  to  the 
old  grounds  of  antipathy  to  Jews,  the  Curia  re- 
gards the  Jews  as  the  chief  moving  spirits  of  what 
It  regards  as  its  chief  enemies — Freemasonry  and 
Secularism.  Then  there  Is  the  scarcely  avowed 
militaristic  school  which  regards  the  Jews  as  the 
representatives  of  capitalism  and  therefore  on 
principle  opposed  to  war.  These  four  tendencies 
(nationalistic,  conservative,  militaristic,  Catholic 
or  High  Church)  are  often  found  combined  In 
Germany,  Austria,  France,  and  England.  Cer- 
tain sections  of  Socialists  are  opposed  to  the  Jews 
as  typical  capitalists,  whereas  one  of  the  heads  of 

39 


INTRODUCTION 

their  offending  to  reactionary  parties  everywhere 
is  that  Socialism  is  so  largely  Jewish.  Many 
earnest  Christians,  even  outside  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church,  consider  that  the  Jews  have  been  the 
main  Instrument  in  undermining  Christian  dogmas, 
and  are,  therefore,  opposed  to  them  on  that 
ground.  On  the  other  hand,  there  Is  quite  a  school 
of  Neo-Pagans,  like  my  friend  the  late  Prof.  York 
Powell,  who  regard  the  Jews  as  responsible  for 
saddling  Europe  with  an  alien  faith.  The  New 
Aristocracy  of  Nietzsche  and  his  followers  con- 
sider the  Jews  responsible  for  the  "slavish"  mo- 
rality of  Christendom.  It  Is  perhaps  unnecessary 
to  refer  to  Isolated  and  eccentric  views  like  those 
of  Mr.  Stanton  Colt,  of  the  London  Ethical  So- 
ciety, who  regards  the  Jews,  owing  to  their  cos- 
mopolitanism, as  a  disturbing  element  In  the 
national-ethical  churches — each,  as  it  were,  with  a 
separate  national  god — which  he  would  like  to 
see  established.  Another  such  sporadic  case  Is 
that  of  Mr.  Chesterton,  who  appears  to  be  preju- 
diced against  the  Jews  on  the  general  principle 
that  a  fine  old  crusty  prejudice  Is  a  good  old 
Johnsonian  quality. 

Various  as   are  the  voices  thus  raised   against 
the  Jews,  there  is  one  ground-tone  which  swells 

40 


INTRODUCTION 

out  above  the  rest  and  becomes  dominant.  As 
might  have  been  anticipated  from  our  historical 
sketch,  it  is  that  of  the  Counter-Revolution,  the 
anti-Liberal  movement  which  spread  through  Eu- 
rope after  1870  under  the  influence  of  Bismarck. 
This  has  recently  found  a  representative  utterance 
in  Chamberlain's  Foundations  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  which,  in  many  ways,  sums  up  the 
whole  anti-Semitic  movement  from  Renan  to 
Treitschke.  Though  really  superficial  and  in- 
consistent. Chamberlain's  book  has  had  an  ex- 
traordinary popularity  because  it  flatters  the 
national  and  racial  vanity  of  Germans  (and  inci- 
dentally of  Englishmen),  who  are  represented  to 
be  the  Chosen  Race,  from  whom  alone  real  gen- 
ius and  real  progress  can  be  anticipated.  As  part 
of  his  argument  he  has  been  compelled  to  show 
that  the  other  claimants  for  the  title  of  Chosen 
Race,  the  Jews,  have  no  claim  to  creative  genius, 
even  in  religion;  and  this  has  helped  to  increase 
the  popularity  of  his  book,  since  attacks  are  al- 
ways popular,  and  he  has  been  able  to  appeal  to 
the  conscious  and  unconscious  anti-Semitism  of 
his  readers.  He  makes  some  show  of  basing  his 
claims  for  the  racial  superiority  of  the  Germans 
upon  modern  anthropological  science;  but  even  he 

41 


INTRODUCTION 

has  to  confess  his  failure  in  this  regard,  and  finally 
bases  his  views  on  his  own  "historic  insight" — 
in  other  words,  prejudice.  The  marked  attention 
which  Chamberlain  pays  to  the  Jews  is  indeed  a 
high  compliment,  and  it  is  worth  while  remark- 
ing that,  while  formerly  Jews  were  despised  as  of 
inferior  culture,  they  now  seem  to  be  feared  as 
of  different  culture,  uneasily  suspected  to  be 
higher/  Otherwise,  why  Mr.  Chamberlain's  dia- 
tribes? 

It  is  time  to  come  to  an  understanding  with 
these  anti-Semites;  to  speak,  as  it  were,  with  the 
enemy  in  the  gate.  If  the  above  diagnosis  of  the 
history  of  Jew-hatred  be  true,  it  has  always  come 
from  above  downwards,  and  has  always  been  kept 
alive  among  the  people  by  the  knowledge  that  it 
is  supported  by  the  opinions  of  men  whom  they 
respect.  Popular  opposition  to  Jews,  as  to  Catho- 
lics, Quakers,  or  Agnostics,  can  only  be  removed 
or  lessened  if  the  higher  intellectuals  of  the  na- 
tions recognize  its  injustice  and  futility.  The  be- 
lief in  Jewish  badness  can  only  disappear  in  the 
same  way  as  the  belief  in  witches  and  ghosts;  and 
it  is  characteristic  that  the  revival  of  the  one  be- 

^  See    the    remarkable    book    of    the    late    Prof.    Shaler,    The 
Neighbor. 

42 


INTRODUCTION 

lief  has  been  synchronous  with  the  recrudescence 
of  the  others,  very  much  in  the  same  quarters. 

For  this  purpose  it  is  not  sufficient  merely  to 
answer  the  arguments  of  the  higher  anti-Semites; 
in  its  broader  aspects  the  Jewish  question  raises 
any  number  of  fundamental  problems  of  modern 
society — political,  economic,  social,  and  religious 
— which  no  one  could  profess  to  solve  as  side- 
issues  of  what  Is  itself  a  side-issue.  Thus  to  reply 
adequately  to  the  four  chief  lines  of  attack  men- 
tioned above  would  be  to  defend  the  modern  spirit 
against  the  Counter-Revolution.^  It  would  be 
Impossible,  as  a  side-issue  of  the  Jewish  question, 
to  convince  Conservatives  of  the  claims  to  exist- 
ence of  Liberalism  and  Democracy;  nor  could  one 
discuss  the  Intricate  problem  of  peace  and  war  In 
order  to  mollify  the  militaristic  school  of  anti- 
Semites.  One  might  perhaps  convince  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  that  the  enemies  of  the  Jews  were 
in  reality  Its  own  enemies  and  that  the  connection 
of  Jews  with  Freemasonry  was  not  so  close  as  it 
imagines.  But  It  would  be  impossible  for  it  to 
relinquish   its   old   principle   of   the    Church-State 

*  Compare  Renan :  "Les  ennemis  du  Judaisme,  regardez-y  de 
pres,  vous  verrez  que  ce  sont  en  general  des  ennemis  de  I'esprit 
moderne." 

43 


INTRODUCTION 

without  ceasing  to  be  Catholicism.  So,  too,  it 
would  be  easy  to  prove  to  Orthodox  Christians 
that,  so  far  from  undermining  religion  by  their 
scepticism,  Jews  have  had  their  own  religion 
equally  undermined  by  the  spirit  of  the  age.^  But 
they  could  never  be  convinced  that  the  existence 
of  Judaism  is  not  a  standing  protest  against  the 
doctrines  of  the  Trinity.  Socialistic  enemies  of 
the  Jews  might,  perhaps,  be  left  to  fight  it  out 
with  the  anti-socialistic  section,  but  one  could 
scarcely  discuss  the  whole  question  of  Socialism  as 
part  of  our  topic.  Similarly,  the  Neo-Pagans  and 
the  New  Aristocrats  might  be  left  to  discuss  their 
anti-Semitic  views  with  their  Christian  and  Demo- 
cratic opponents,  but  the  fundamental  questions 
involved  between  the  two  schools  could  scarcely  be 
solved  as  an  excursus  to  the  discussion  of  the 
Jewish  question. 

No,  the  Jewish  defence,  if  it  is  to  be  at  all  effec- 
tive, must  be  of  a  direct  and  positive  character. 
The  claim  of  the  Jews  to  a  "place  in  the  sun,"  in 
modern  life,  must,  in  the  last  resort,  be  based  on 
their  capacity  for  contributing  valuable  elements 
to  that  life.     This  can  only  be  determined  by  the 

^  This   was   clearly   seen   by  the    late   Leroy  Beaulieu   in   his 
Israel  Amotiff  ike  Nations. 

44 


INTRODUCTION 

history  of  the  past,  remote  and  recent.  Unless 
they  have  shown  themselves  in  the  past  capable  of 
contributing  to  the  higher  aspects  of  European  cul- 
ture, it  would  be  improbable  that  they  would  be 
able  to  join  fully  in  it  now  that  they  are  allowed, 
in  some  measure,  to  work  with  their  fellow-citi- 
zens. Again,  if  they  have  acquired,  by  a  long 
process  of  unnatural  selection,  any  special  capa- 
bilities, adapting  them  for  special  work  in  the 
world,  this  ought  to  show  itself  in  actual  achieve- 
ment during  recent  times,  when  they  have  been 
allowed,  to  some  extent,  to  show  their  capacity. 
We  know  little  of  the  forces  that  make  or  modify 
racial  character,  but  we  do  know,  from  the  widest 
inductions  of  history  and  common  observation, 
that  it  is  one  of  the  most  permanent  forces  on 
earth ;  so  much  may  be  granted  to  race-theo- 
rists like  Gobineau  or  Chamberlain.  Frenchmen 
repeat  to  this  day  most  of  the  characteristics  of 
Cfesar's  Gauls;  the  Englishry  of  Edward  I  or 
Chaucer  is  as  marked  as  that  of  Edward  VII  or 
William  Morris.  So,  too,  the  Jewish  martyrs  of 
York  Castle  in  1190  recall  to  the  English  Chron- 
iclers of  the  time  the  very  lineaments  of  the  he- 
roes of  Jerusalem  1,120  years  previously.  Karl 
Marx   shows,    on   behalf   of   the   bearers   of   the 

45 


INTRODUCTION 

world's  burdens,  the  exalted  indignation  of  an 
Isaiah.  Henri  Bergson  seems  destined  to  take 
the  same  place  in  the  world's  thought  of  the  twen- 
tieth century  that  Maimonides  did  in  the  twelfth 
and  Spinoza  did  in  the  seventeenth.  Heinrich 
Heine  only  shows,  in  higher  degree  and  more 
modern  form,  the  same  incisive  wit  that  animates 
Judah  al-Harizi  or  Immanuel  of  Rome.  If  it  can 
be  shown  that  Jews  throughout  the  ages  have  con- 
tributed their  share  to  the  world's  higher  life  and 
have,  by  their  experiences,  acquired  specific  ca- 
pacities to  continue  to  do  so,  they  have  a  right  to 
say  to  the  world:  "Stand  aside;  let  us  to  our  ap- 
pointed work." 

To  raise  the  further  inquiry  whether  Jews  are 
likeable  or  ''clubable"  is  rather  a  young  lady's 
or  a  snob's  question  than  a  man's.  The  peoples 
that  have  fashioned  the  world — Phoenicians  and 
Romans,  Normans  and  Spaniards,  Englishmen 
and  Prussians,  Yankees  and  Japs — have  not  made 
themselves  liked  in  the  process.  Their  claim  to 
existence  and  influence  has  been  based  upon  the 
work  they  have  done  for  the  world  quite  apart 
from  their  likeability.  So,  in  the  last  resort,  must 
it  be  with  Jews. 

If  these  considerations  are  correct,  our  task  in 
46 


INTRODUCTION 

the  present  work  must  be  to  appraise  Jewish  con- 
tributions to  the  world's  culture,  and  it  is  need- 
less to  dilate  upon  the  difficulties  of  such  a  task. 
If  it  be  difficult,  in  Burke's  phrase,  to  indict  a 
whole  nation,  it  is  even  less  easy  to  appraise  its 
worth.  The  complications  are  both  objective  and 
subjective,  or,  to  avoid  those  hateful  words,  ma- 
terial and  personal.  It  is  no  slight  task  to  ad- 
judge the  spiritual  work  of  a  historic  people 
throughout  three  thousand  years,  during  the  ma- 
jor part  of  which  they  have  been  scattered  over 
all  the  lands  of  civilization.  A  people  contributes 
to  the  world's  progress  either  through  its  institu- 
tions and  general  tendencies  or  through  its  indi- 
vidualities. The  chief  institution  in  which  Jew- 
ish influence  is  prominent  is  the  Christian  Church, 
which,  in  its  organization,  its  liturgy,  and  much 
of  its  spirit,  still  shows  traces  of  its  Jewish  origin. 
Above  all,  the  Bible,  which  has  permeated  Chris- 
tendom in  thousands  of  ways,  is  the  noblest  prod- 
uct of  the  Hebraic  spirit,  and  is,  in  its  way,  a 
Jewish  institution.  During  the  Middle  Ages  the 
Jews,  by  their  spread  among  the  nations,  were 
enabled  to  contribute  to  the  intellectual  and  com- 
mercial development  of  Europe  by  their  activities 
as  intermediaries  in  thought  and  commerce.    They 

47 


INTRODUCTION 

even  contributed,  in  an  indirect  way,  to  the  build- 
ing up  of  the  feudal  kingship,  and  constituted  one 
of  the  unifying  elements  of  the  mediaeval  Euro- 
pean system.  Their  position  as  forming  the  sole 
exception  to  the  Christian  consensus  had  its  in- 
fluence in  promoting  the  slow  development  of  free 
thought  and  religious  toleration.  They  had  their 
contributions  to  add  both  to  the  Renaissance  and 
to  the  Reformation,  and  it  is  notorious  that  the 
modern  trend  toward  political  liberty  and  demo- 
cratic institutions  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  was 
largely  influenced  by  the  principles  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures.  In  more  modern  times  Jews  have  had 
much  to  do  in  shaping  the  principles  and  policy 
of  that  large  movement  of  the  world's  thought 
known  as  Socialism.  A  recent  work  of  Prof. 
Sombart  even  goes  so  far  as  to  assert  that  the 
transformation  of  the  economic  constitution  of  so- 
ciety, caused  by  capitalistic  methods  of  produc- 
tion, is  due  mainly  to  the  Jews;  and  this  claim 
would  have  to  be  considered  and  measured. 

In  short,  to  appraise  the  contributions  of  Jews 
to  the  world's  advancement  is  little  less  than  to 
write  the  history  of  civilization  for  the  past  two 
thousand  years.  Fortunately,  for  the  particular 
end   in   view,   the  work   has  been  done,   in  large 

48 


INTRODUCTION 

measure,  sporadically  and  for  other  purposes.  For 
the  past  fifty  years  Jewish  and  Gentile  scholars 
have  thrown  the  light  of  research  upon  all  these 
topics/  and,  while  it  is  difficult,  it  will  not  be  im- 
possible to  summarize  their  results  sufficiently  for 
the  particular  purpose  we  have  in  view. 

When  we  come  to  the  latest  age,  since  the  Jew- 
ish emancipation,  we  have  to  deal  with  individuals 
rather  than  with  institutions  or  tendencies.  The 
number  of  Jews  who  have  contributed  in  one  way 
or  another  to  the  world's  progress,  instruction, 
and  delight  in  recent  years  is  indeed  remarkable, 
and  would  deserve  record  for  its  own  sake.  The 
difficulties  of  enumeration  are  almost  insuperable. 
The  Jewish  origin  of  many  professional,  scien- 
tific, and  artistic  celebrities  is  often  unknown  and 
sometimes  concealed  even  by  themselves,  and 
there  Is  always  the  danger  of  wrongful  inclusion 
or  exclusion  lest  one  do  Injustice  either  to  Jews  or 
to  others.  Here  I  have  had  practically  no  prede- 
cessors,  and  have  had  to   perform  the  laborious 

^  The  following  may  be  mentioned  as  examples  of  such  con- 
tributions from  the  outside:  Hatch  and  Harnack  on  Church 
organization;  Lecky  and  Schleiden  on  Jewish  contributions  to 
mediseval  science;  Stoeckl  on  the  Jewish  elements  in  mediaeval 
mysticism;  Burckhardt  on  the  Renaissance;  Sir  Frederick  Pol- 
lock on  Spinoza;  Diestel  on  the  symbolic  methods  of  mediaeval 
exegesis. 

49 


INTRODUCTION 

task  of  collecting  together  the  Jewish  celebrities 
with  as  much  care  and  industry  as  I  could  bestow. 
Fortunately,  this  is  a  subject  to  which  I  have  de- 
voted considerable  attention  for  the  past  thirty 
years,  and  have  dealt  with  in  a  less  complete  fash- 
ion on  two  preceding  occasions.^ 

For,  in  my  view,  such  an  estimate  of  contem- 
porary contributions  to  the  world's  progress  is  an 
essential  part  of  the  Jewish  defence.  Against  the 
vague  anti-Semitic  denunciations  of  Jewish  char- 
acteristics, which  are  mainly  the  results  of  preju- 
dice and,  in  any  case,  cannot  be  checked  or  meas- 
ured, we  can  here  set  down  the  definite  results  of 
Jewish  achievement.  We  can  even  go  further 
and,  by  the  aid  of  modern  statistical  science  as 
developed  by  Galton  and  Pearson,  arrive  at  some 
measurable  comparison  between  the  output  of 
Jewish  ability  and  that  of  others.  The  science  of 
probabilities  even  enables  us  to  go  further  and  to 
determine,  with  some  precision,  the  probable  pro- 
portions of  Jews  of  different  ranks  of  ability, 
which  would  otherwise  not  be  measurable. 

I  have  spoken  above  of  the  subjective  or  per- 

^A  comparative  estimate  of  Jewish  ability  in  the  Journal  of 
the  Ayithropological  Institute,  1887,  and  the  section  on  Biography 
in  my  little  volume  on  The  Jewish  Encyclopedia,  a  guide  to 
us  contents,  1906,  pp.  90-110. 

50 


INTRODUCTION 

sonal  difficulties  in  the  way  of  such  an  investiga- 
tion as  that  which  I  am  now  outHning.  I  refer, 
of  course,  to  the  fact  that  this  book,  which  has 
for  its  purpose  to  put  forth  the  claims  of  the 
Jews  to  the  world's  recognition,  emanates  from 
one  who  is  himself  a  Jew  by  race  and  training. 
It  would  be  distasteful  to  make  any  such  claims 
at  all  but  that  one  is  forced  to  do  so  in  answer  to 
the  attacks  of  the  anti-Semites.  It  would  be  even 
still  more  distasteful  if  one  had  to  put  forth  any 
exclusive  claims  on  the  part  of  the  Jews.  What 
one  chiefly  objects  to  in  Chamberlain's  book  is  the 
arrogance  and  insolence  of  the  exclusive  claims 
that  it  advances  on  behalf  of  the  "Teutonic"  gen- 
ius. No  one  would  deny  for  a  moment  the  mag- 
nificent contributions  to  the  spiritual  and  material 
development  of  modern  civilization  made  by 
"Teutons"  (by  which  term,  in  the  last  resort,  Mr. 
Chamberlain  means  Europeans  in  general)  ;  but 
to  contend  that  no  other  race  has  ever  made  any 
contributions  worth  considering,  nor  can  do  so, 
owing  to  permanent  racial  inferiority,  exceeds  all 
the  bounds  of  good  taste  and  even  good  breeding. 
Mr.  Chamberlain  has  pushed  the  conception  of 
the  Chosen  Race  beyond  all  bounds. 

Modern  men  have  arrived  at  a  transvaluation 
51 


INTRODUCTION 

of  the  notion  of  a  Chosen  Race  which  is  at  once 
more  modest  and  more  human.  They  have  trans- 
formed it  into  the  notion  of  Chosen  Races,  each 
with  its  own  special  characteristics,  each,  there- 
fore, with  a  capacity  to  contribute  something  of 
Its  own  to  the  treasure  of  human  achievement.  No 
race  has  a  monopoly  of  any  of  the  human  quali- 
ties or  capacities,  but  each  has,  by  innate  or 
acquired  ability,  some  or  other  of  these  qualities 
in  a  more  fully  developed  form.  At  appropriate 
moments  of  the  world's  history  a  race  may 
Influence  others  by  Its  specific  qualifications.  To 
give  a  simple  example,  the  whole  of  modern 
European  art  has  been  transformed  by  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Chinese  and  Japanese  notion 
of  mass  and  tone  "values"  as  revealed  by  the 
Goncourts.^ 

It  is  a  man's  duty  to  learn  for  what  part  of 
the  world's  work  he  is  best  fitted  by  his  original 
or  acquired  qualities;  similarly  every  race  with 
distinctive  characteristics  should  learn  to  acquire 
self-knowledge    of   its   own   capacities,    so   that   it 

'  I  observe  that,  in  tracing  the  modern  revival  of  the  dance  in 
the  negroid  forms  of  the  cake-walk,  turkey-trot,  and  tango, 
writers  like  Dr.  Havelock  Ellis  speak  with  full  appreciation  of 
the  charm  of  a  return  to  a  frank  enjoyment  of  the  sensuous  ele- 
ments of  life  without  any  vilification  of  the  Negro. 

52 


INTRODUCTION 

can  do  the  best  for  itself  and  for  the  world  In 
developing  those  qualities  likely  to  advance  the 
cause  of  humanity  and,  of  course,  repressing 
any  which  are  at  all  anti-social.  They  have  a 
right  to  call  upon  their  fellow-men  to  help  them, 
so  far  as  possible,  in  developing  the  former,  in 
repressing  the  latter.  I  conceive,  therefore,  that 
I  am  doing  nothing  objectionable  or  in  bad  taste 
In  attempting  to  ascertain  from  the  achievements 
of  my  own  people  their  special  capacities  to 
advance  the  Vv^orld.  The  time  may  come  when 
men,  Instead  of  reviling  others  for  being  dif- 
ferent from  them,  would  welcome  such  differ- 
ences as  likely  to  lead  to  new  contributions  to 
the  world's  advancement,  while  at  the  same  time 
adding  to  the  charms  of  social  Intercourse.  Noth- 
ing leads  to  boredom  more  than  uniformity  of 
manners  and  thoughts. 

Having  these  facts  of  Jewish  Influence  before 
us,  we  may  then  be  In  a  position  to  draw  some 
conclusions  as  to  the  position  of  the  Jew  In  the 
modern  state.  Granting  the  racial  differences 
which  have  seemingly  aroused  so  much  Ill-will, 
one  may  raise  the  question  whether  such  sec- 
tional differences  are  not  especially  desirable  In 
the   modern  state,   the   chief  danger   of  which   Is 

53 


INTRODUCTION 

a  tendency  to  mediocre  uniformity  akin  to  Chi- 
nesism.  There  should  be  such  a  thing  as  divi- 
sion of  labor  in  the  spiritual  as  well  as  in  the 
working  world.  It  may  be  contended  that  the 
Jew  is  especially  adapted  for  the  modern  Cul- 
ture-State, whereas  he  was  forcedly  an  alien 
element  in  the  older  Church-State,  with  its  feudal 
fixity  of  classes  and  uniformity  of  creed.  The 
higher  anti-Semitism  of  modern  times  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  mainly  the  outcome  of  an  attempted 
revival  of  the  Church-State.  In  this  connection 
the  Jewish  question  is  but  one  aspect  of  the  final 
stand  of  the  privileged  classes  of  Europe  to  stem 
the  forces  of  modern  democracy. 

In  accordance  with  the  above  principles,  I 
have  divided  the  discussion  of  Jewish  influence 
in  the  following  pages  into  three  books.  In 
the  first  book  I  have  endeavored  to  enumerate 
the  Jewish  contributions  to  civilization  during 
the  past  two  thousand  years,  showing  that  they 
have  made  themselves  thereby  a  constituent  ele- 
ment of  that  civilization  to  which  they  are 
equally  heirs  with  other  nations,  creeds,  and  peo- 
ples. In  the  second  book  I  have  tried  to  evaluate, 
the  contributions  of  individual  Jews  to  modern 
European    culture    in    the    immediate    past    and 

54 


INTRODUCTION 

present.  I  have  tried  to  avoid  the  chief  danger 
of  such  enumerations  by  giving  not  only  hsts 
of  names,  which  may  be  both  confusing  and 
misleading  to  the  general  reader,  but  also,  as 
often  as  possible,  giving  the  proportion  of  Jewish 
names  in  general  lists,  which  is  the  only  fair 
way  of  comparison.  Finally,  in  the  third  book, 
I  have  essayed  the  difficult  task  of  determin- 
ing the  value  of  Jews  in  the  modern  cultural 
state  and  thus  to  give  an  adequate  answer  to 
the  question  raised  by  the  higher  anti-Semites 
of  to-day,  who,  in  consonance  with  their  me- 
diaeval ideals,  are  opposed  to  Jewish  influence 
in  the  Church-State  which  they  would  like  to 
see  revived. 

It  will  be  found,  I  think,  that  I  have  dis- 
cussed, at  appropriate  stages  of  the  argument, 
all  the  anti-Semitic  objections  to  Jews  and  their 
influence  which  are  really  deserving  of  mention. 
I  must  confess  that  I  have  not  condescended  to 
consider  some  of  the  cruder  views  of  lower 
natures  such  as  that  all  Jews  are  usurers  or 
pitiless,  or  the  like.  No  consideration  will  be 
found  in  these  pages  of  the  so-called  blood 
accusation,  which  is  merely  a  piece  of  mediaeval 
folk-lore     revived     for    sinister     purposes.       The 

55 


INTRODUCTION 

only  questions  at  issue  to  be  discussed  here  are 
the  extent  and  effect  of  Jewish  influence  through- 
*  out  the  ages  and  especially  at  the  present  time. 
Our  various  discussions  may  bring  out  results 
of  interest  and  value  apart  from  their  apologetic 
validity.  If  the  thrice-tested  facts  of  the  Jewish 
superiority  of  intellectual  output  in  Book  II  can 
be  trusted,  it  would  appear  that  the  Jewish 
germ-plasm  is  a  valuable  asset  in  the  world's 
treasure-house  of  character.  I  have  shown,  I 
think  fairly  conclusively,  that  there  is  a  certain 
probability  that  a  determinate  number  of  Jews 
at  the  present  time  will  produce  a  larger  num- 
ber of  "geniuses"  (whether  inventive  or  not,  I 
will  not  say)  than  any  equal  number  of  men  of 
other  races.  It  seems  highly  probable,  for  ex- 
ample, that  German  Jews  at  the  present  moment 
are  quantitativ^ely  (not  necessarily  qualitatively) 
at  the  head  of  European  intellect.^  There  are 
certain  indications  that  those  Russian  Jews  who 
have  been  released  from  Russian  tyranny  will 
show  the  same  extent  of  capacity. 

^  Yet  I  can  remember  the  time  when  the  most  contemptuous 
term  which  an  English  journalist  could  apply  to  any  character 
was  that  of  German  Jew.  The  contributions  of  Beit,  Mond, 
Speyer,  and  Cassel  to  the  higher  life  of  England  have  been 
a  remarkable  return  for  this  depreciation. 

56 


INTRODUCTION 

It  is  Still  a  disputed  point  among  anthropolo- 
gists whether  the  common  points  of  Jews  are 
due  to  race  or  environment.  Our  results,  so  far 
as  they  go,  seem  to  confirm  those  who  contend 
for  a  common  ancestry  of  contemporary  Jews, 
since  it  is  improbable  that  high  ability  of  similar 
type  should  be  so  uniformly  the  outcome  of 
much  dissimilarity  of  environment.  If  this  be 
so,  the  desirability  of  further  propagation  of  the 
Jewish  germ-plasm  is  a  matter  not  merely  of 
Jewish  interest.  In  this  connection  the  question 
of  the  high  ability  of  the  Jewish  half-breeds,  to 
which  James  Russell  Lowell  devoted  so  much 
attention,  calls  to  be  considered;  at  any  rate,  their 
existence,  in  large  number,  is  sufficient  to  disprove 
Chamberlain's  contention  of  the  radical  superior- 
ity of  the  German  over  the  Jewish   germ-plasm. 

But  modern  students  of  heredity  recognize 
three  elements  in  the  formation  of  a  man's 
character — heritage,  environment,  and  training. 
The  question  as  to  the  origin  of  Jewish  ability 
(which,  after  all,  is  generally  recognized  even 
by  anti-Semites)  has  hitherto  been  exclusively 
discussed  from  one  or  other  of  the  first  two  stand- 
.  points;  it  still  remains  to  be  considered  whether 
much,    if  not  most,   of   the   Jewish   capacity   has 

57 


INTRODUCTION 

not  been  produced  by  the  special  Jewish  train- 
ing in  the  home  and  in  the  synagogue.  A  long 
course  of  Jewish  history  has  developed  a  special 
Jewish  ethos  which  has  created  certain  architec- 
tonic ideals  distinctive  of  Jews.  Some  of  these 
ideals,  as  embodied  in  the  Bible,  have  already 
had  their  influence  on  civilized  humanity;  it 
remains  to  be  seen  whether  others,  which  have 
hitherto  been  confined  to  the  Jewish  home,  may 
not  attract  the  sympathetic  attention  and  imita- 
tion of  the  world,  which  is  nowadays  more  than 
ever  ready  to  learn  from  all  quarters.  It  will 
thus  be  seen  that  the  Jewish  question  is  con- 
nected with  numbers  of  others,  both  eugenic 
and  euthenic,  quite  apart  from  the  problems 
raised  by  the  higher  anti-Semites;  I  have  en- 
deavored, at  times,  in  the  following  pages  to 
touch  upon  these  larger  aspects  quite  apart  from 
their  bearing  on  the  general  lines  of  the  Jewish 
defence.  The  Jewish  question  is  in  these  various 
ways  both  practically  and  theoretically  a  world 
problem,  as  indeed  the  Hebrew  prophets  recog- 
nized with  rare  insight  three  thousand  years  ago. 
Isaiah's  picture  of  the  suffering  Servant  of  the 
Lord  might  have  been  written  to-day  of  Russian 
Israel. 

58 


BOOK    ONE 
JEWS    OF    THE    PAST 


59 


CHAPTER  I 

The  People  of  the  Book 

The  Jews  have  been  made  what  they  are  by 
the  Bible,  by  which  I  mean,  of  course,  what  is 
usually  termed  the  Old  Testament.  Their  life 
has  been  dominated  by  its  law,  their  feelings 
by  its  psalter,  their  ideals  by  its  prophets,  their 
outlook  on  life  by  its  wisdom,  and  their  hopes 
for  the  future  by  its  apocalypse.  When  anti- 
Semites  complain  of  the  burden  imposed  upon 
the  life  of  the  Jew  by  the  mass  of  talmudic  tech- 
nicalities they  are  unaware  that,  in  nine  hundred 
and  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  thousand,  these 
enactments  are  simply  applications  of  the  law 
of  the  Bible.  The  Mishnah  and  Gemara,  which 
make  up  the  Talmud,  bear  the  same  relation  to 
the  legal  portions  of  the  Pentateuch  as  the 
Digest  to  the  Institutes  of  Gaius  or  Justinian. 
The  prophets,  it  is  true,  found  no  successors  in 
Israel  for  their  remarkable  amalgam  of  rhap- 
sody  and   politics,   but   their   spirit   informed    all 

61 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

the  higher  thought  of  the  nation  till  it  ceased 
to  be  a  nation,  and  has  continued  to  inspire  the 
higher  spirits  of  the  Jewish  people  ever  since. 
The  sweet  singers  of  Israel  did  not  cease  with 
the  Fifth  Book  of  the  Psalms.  In  the  Psalms 
and  Odes  of  Solomon,  in  the  rhythms  of  the 
daily  prayers,  in  the  Piyyutim  and  Selihot  of 
the  medieval  hymnologists,  the  sacred  poets  of 
Israel  carried  on  the  tradition  of  the  psalmist, 
more  often  than  not  spoiling  their  poetic  effect 
by  too  closely  clinging  to  the  phraseology  of 
their  biblical  predecessor.  The  practical  sagacity 
with  which  the  world  has  ever  credited  Jews 
has  always  been  ennobled  by  touches  of  the 
higher  biblical  wisdom.  Thus  we  find  Gliickel 
of  Hameln  interspersing  her  reflections  on  the 
state  of  business  at  Hamburg  or  the  prospect 
of  good  matches  for  her  children  with  pious 
acceptance  of  the  decree  of  the  Most  High. 
Lastly,  the  apocalyptic  visions  of  Ezekiel  and 
Daniel  found  innumerable  successors  from  Enoch 
to  Herzl,  all  connecting  the  fate  of  the  Jewish 
nation  with  the  higher  history  of  humanity.  For 
over  two  thousand  years  the  whole  of  Jewish 
literature — exegesis  and  legislation,  hymnology 
and   satire,    philosophy    and    mysticism — centered 

62 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

round  and  was  derived  from  the  Bible.  If  it 
be  true,  as  it  obviously  is,  that  the  Bible  is  a 
creation  of  the  Jews,  it  is  also  true,  though  not 
so  obvious,  that  the  Jews  are  a  creation  of  the 
Bible. 

It  was  this  intimate  relation  between  boolc 
and  people  which  enabled  them  to  survive 
through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  ancient,  mediaeval, 
and  modern  history.  Throughout  the  ages  the 
most  convenient  bond  between  men  has  been 
that  of  contiguity.  In  the  vast  majority  of 
cases  the  land  made  the  people,  that  is  after 
they  had  settled  down  upon  it  in  the  agricul- 
tural stage.  But  there  are  two  great  exceptions 
to  this  rule  in  historic  times.  The  Teutonic 
clans  so  impressed  their  character  upon  the  lands 
to  which  they  Avandered  that  the  very  soil  was 
named  after  the  tribes — France,  Normandy, 
England,  Lombardy,  Burgundy,  and  the  like. 
The  clans  of  Israel,  or  rather  of  Judah,  after 
they  were  dispersed  from  Judaea,  never  became 
associated  again  with  any  definite  land,  but  yet 
retained  all  that  feeling  of  fellowship  which  goes 
to  make  up  a  people.  That  they  did  so  was  in 
large,  almost  in  exclusive,  measure  due  to  the 
Bible.     The  Jews  have  indeed  deserved  the  title 

63 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

given  to  them  by  Muhammed,  "The  People  of 
the  Book." ' 

But  the  book  that  has  thus  made  the  Jews 
what  they  are  has  also,  in  large  measure,  laid 
the  foundation  of  European  civilization.  In  all 
matters  spiritual  the  Bible  is  the  one  common 
fountain-head  of  European  thought  and  feeling, 
as,  with  perhaps  ^sop's  Fables,  it  is  the  only 
book  which  every  European  has  read  who  has 
read  any  book.  If,  in  Matthew  Arnold's  phrase, 
Hebraism  rules  the  conduct  of  three-quarters  of 
life  (for  most  men  he  might  have  made  it  nine- 
tenths),  for  the  majority  of  men  it  has  been  the 
Bible  alone  which  has  represented  what  the  poet- 
critic  calls  Hebraism,  In  the  Middle  Ages,  in- 
deed, the  remaining  quarter  of  life,  which  is 
filled  up  with  art  and  thought,  was  also  mainly 
dependent  upon  the  Bible  for  its  influence.  The 
beginnings  of  modern  drama  are  to  be  found  in 
the  miracle  plays,  which,  in  all  the  cloisters  of 
Europe,  enacted  the  scenes  of  the  Bible  for  the 
people  who  could  not  read  it.^  The  Gregorian 
music    which    rolled    through    all    the    cathedral 

^  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  term  is  applied  in  the  Koran  to  any 
people  or  sect  having  a  sacred  Scripture,  and  thus  includes 
Christians  and  "Sabaeans"  as  well  as  Jews. 

"  See  for  details  Chambers'  Mediaval  Stage,  Oxford,  1903. 
64 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

aisles  of  Europe  has  been  traced  back  to  the 
cantillations  with  which  Jews  recited  the  sacred 
text.  Remove  from  the  Old  Masters  their  de- 
lineations of  the  biblical  scenes,  and  there  would 
not  be  much  left  of  pre-Raphaelite  art.  Even 
in  law,  in  which  the  genius  of  Rome  was  ulti- 
mately to  exercise  so  supreme  an  influence  on 
European  legislation,  the  Bible  in  the  beginnings 
had  its  word  to  say.  Alfred's  Dooms  were 
prefaced  with  extracts  from  Leviticus  adapted 
to  the  needs  of  Anglo-Saxon  England,  and  in 
almost  all  the  early  Teutonic  codes,  when  writ- 
ten down,  were  extracts  from  the  pentateuchal 
codes  which  formed  part  of  the  record;  nor 
must  It  be  forgotten  that  the  Digest  in  its  final 
form  is  a  Christian  document  and  has  undergone 
the  influence  of  the  Christian,  which  includes 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  President  Woodrow 
Wilson,  in  his  treatise  on  the  State,  draws  marked 
attention  to  this  aspect:^  "It  would  be  a  mis- 
take, however,  to  ascribe  to  Roman  legal  con- 
ceptions an  undivided  sway  over  the  develop- 
ment of  law  and  institutions  during  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  Teuton  came  under  the  influence, 
not    of    Rome    only,    but    also    of    Christianity; 

'  Section  220. 

65 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

and  through  the  Church  there  entered  into 
Europe  a  potent  leaven  of  Judaic  thought. 
The  laws  of  Moses  as  well  as  the  laws  of  Rome 
contributed  suggestion  and  impulse  to  the  men 
and  institutions  which  were  to  prepare  the  mod- 
ern world;  and  if  we  could  but  have  the  eyes  to 
see  the  subtle  elements  of  thought  which  con- 
stitute the  gross  substance  of  our  present  habit, 
both  as  regards  the  sphere  of  private  life,  and 
as  regards  the  action  of  the  state,  we  should 
easily  discover  how  very  much  besides  religion  we 
owe  to  the  Jew."  ^ 

Not  alone  has  the  Bible  had  influence  upon 
European  law,  it  has  affected,  even  more  strik- 
ingly, the  law-making  institutions  of  Europe. 
The  constitutionalism  of  modern  Europe,  which 
we  have  seen  spread  in  recent  years  to  countries 
as  remote  from  European  modes  of  thought  as 
China,  Persia,  and  Turkey,  can  be  distinctly 
traced  back  to  the  constitutional  struggles  of 
England  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  every- 
one knows  that  at  the  back  of  the  parliamentary 

'  Mr.  Chamberlain,  however,  goes  too  far  in  suggesting  that 
the  universalistic  element  in  Roman  law  is  due  to  Semitic  (he 
hints  at  Jewish)  influence.  Here,  of  course,  he  is  working  as 
usual  for  the  nationalism  of  his  party  against  any  taint  or  tinge 
of  universalism. 

66 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

movement  was  the  inspiration  of  ancient  Israel. 
The  Puritans  carried  their  recognition  of  this 
influence  so  far  as  to  load  their  children  with 
unwieldy  names  taken  or  imitated  from  the  Old 
Testament/  The  appeal  of  both  those  who 
held  to  the  divine  right  of  kings  and  of  those 
who  were  for  a  democratic  gov^ernment  was,  in 
both  cases,  to  the  Bible  as  the  final  authority 
in  Commonwealth  times. ^  Indeed  the  whole  idea 
of  the  Reformation  was  to  restore  to  the  Bible 
the  absolute  authority  in  matters  of  religion  and 
faith  which,  according  to  the  Reformers,  had 
been  usurped  by  the  popes.  In  Protestant  lands, 
almost  to  the  present  day,  a  definite  statement 
of  the  Bible  on  one  side  or  the  other  of  a  dis- 
puted point  was  held,  for  most  people,  to  settle 
the  matter.  If  the  Influence  of  the  Bible  was 
strong  in  Old  England,  it  was  still  stronger  in 
New  England  In  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
even    gave    It   a    tendency    toward    Republicanism 

^  See  Bardsley,  Curiosities  of  Puritan  Nomenclature,  Lon- 
don, 1879;  which  contains  such  specimens  as  Maher-shalal- 
hash-baz  Smith;  If-Christ-had-not-come-into-the-world-thou- 
hadst-been-damned  Barbone  (generally  known,  "for  short,"  as 
Damned  Barbone). 

"  See  Figgis,  T/ie  Divine  Right  of  Kings,  second  edition, 
London,  1914;  Gooch,  History  of  English  Democratic  Ideas  in 
the  Seventeenth  Century,  Cambridge,  1898. 

67 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

which  was,  in  the  next  century,  to  lead  to  the 
dissolution  of  the  bond  between  England  Old 
and  New/ 

It  would  perhaps  be  going  too  far  to  claim 
that  the  spread  of  modern  Republicanism  was 
due  entirely  to  the  Bible.  The  Swiss  and  Italian 
republics  arose  before  the  Bible,  by  means  of 
the  Reformation,  had  had  so  extensive  an  influ- 
ence on  political  thought.  But  undoubtedly  in 
Holland,  in  England,  and  in  the  United  States 
the  example  of  Israel  winning  its  freedom  from 
Pharaoh  or  opposing  its  own  monarchs,  when 
they  attempted  to  force  unpopular  doctrines  or 
actions  upon  it,  was  a  strong  force  at  the  back 
of  the  stern  Calvinists,  who  were  the  chief  force 
in  getting  rid  of  tyrannous  monarchy.  The  Eng- 
lish Rebellion  began  with  the  cry:  "To  your 
tents,  O  Israel." 

How  deeply  the  Bible  has  sunk  into  the  folk- 
soul  of  all  Europeans  is  shown,  perhaps,  most 
conclusively  by  its  ingrained  influence  upon  the 
language  of  the  peoples.  Quite  apart  from  the 
fact  that  the  heroes  of  the  Bible — Adam,  Noah, 
Abraham,   Jacob,   Joseph,    Moses,    Samson,   Saul, 

^  See  Oscar  S.  Straus,  Origin  of  Republican  Form  of  Govern- 
ment, New  York,  1882. 

68 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

David,  Solomon,  and  the  rest — have  taken  the 
place  of  the  old  mythical  heroes  of  the  Sagas 
and  national  legends,  the  phraseology  of  daily 
life  in  all  European  languages  bears  traces  of 
biblical  influence.  Whenever  we  speak  of  "a 
land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,"  "a  still, 
small  voice,"  "a  tale  that  is  told,"  "darkness 
which  may  be  felt,"  "vanity  of  vanities,"  "law 
of  the  Medes  and  Persians,"  "a  wife  of  one's 
bosom,"  "an  apple  of  one's  eye,"  we  are  re- 
peating biblical  expressions.  Whenever  we  "eat, 
drink,  and  be  merry,"  "take  sweet  counsel  to- 
gether," "grind  the  faces  of  the  poor,"  "cause 
the  widow's  heart  to  sing  for  joy,"  "make  a 
covenant  with  death,"  "heap  coals  of  fire,"  and 
"be  weighed  in  the  balances  and  found 
wanting,"  we  are  unconsciously  plagiarizing 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  Much  of  our  popular 
wisdom  comes  from  the  same  source,  as,  for 
example,  "Put  not  thy  trust  in  princes";  "Go 
to  the  ant,  thou  sluggard";  "Answer  a  fool 
according  to  his  folly";  "A  wise  son  maketh  a 
glad  father" ;  "Be  not  righteous  over  much" ; 
"A  soft  answer  turneth  away  wrath";  "The 
race   is   not   to   the   swift" ;    "Love   Is   strong   as 

69 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

death";    "In   the    multitude    of    counsellors    there 
is  safety";  "Righteousness  exalteth  a  nation." 

In  the  very  fixation  of  the  forms  of  a  lan- 
guage the  Bible  has  often  had  a  critical  influ- 
ence. Our  only  record  of  the  earliest  stages 
of  the  Teutonic  languages  is  given  by  Ulfilas' 
translations  of  the  Gospels.  Owing  to  the 
activities  of  the  Bible  societies,  there  are  hun- 
dreds of  dialects  the  only  printed  records  of 
which  consist  of  the  translations  of  the  Bible. 
Amid  the  warring  struggles  of  the  different  Ger- 
man dialects  for  mastery,  Luther's  version  of 
the  Bible  gave  the  victory  to  High  German.  We 
all  know  what  effect  King  James'  Version  has 
had  upon  the  English  tongue,  arousing  even  the 
envy  of  Roman  Catholics,  notwithstanding  their 
doctrinal  preference  for  the  Douay  Version.^ 

I  may  perhaps  best  summarize  the  influence 
of  the  Bible  on  European  culture  by  giving  the 
Table  of  Contents  of  the  admirable  little  book 
of  Prof.  E.  von  Dobschiitz  on  "The  Influence 
of  the  Bible  on  Civilization,"  which  reached  me  . 
in  time  for  the  revision  of  this  chapter.  He 
practically    divides    up    the    history    of    Christian 

'  See  the  eulogy  of  Cardinal   Wiseman,  quoted  by  Trench  in 
his  English  Past  and  Present. 

70 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

civilization  into  sections  according  to  the  atti- 
tude of  men,  during  various  periods,  toward  the 
Bible,  as  follows : 

Chapter  I.  The  Bible  Makes  Itself  Indispensa- 
ble for  the  Church  (to  325  a.d.). 

"  II.  The  Bible  Begins  to  Rule  the  Chris- 
tian Empire   (325-600  A.D.)  . 

"  III.  The  Bible  Teaches  the  German  Na- 
tions  (500-800  A.D.). 

"  IV.  The  Bible  Becomes  One  Basis 
of  MeditEval  Civilization  (800- 
1 150  A.D.). 

"  V.  The  Bible  Stirs  Non-Conformist 
Movements   (i  150-1450). 

"  VI.  The  Bible  Trains  Printers  and 
Translators   (1450-1611). 

"  VII.  The  Bible  Rules  Dally  Life  (1550- 
1850). 

"  VIII.  The  Bible  Becomes  Once  More  the 
Book  of  Devotion.^ 

Of  course.  Prof.  Dobschiitz  is  dealing  with  the 
New   as  well   as   the   Old   Testament,   but   most 

'  The  same  author's  article  on  the  "Bible  in  the  Church,"  in 
Hastings'  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  deals  with  the 
subject  topically  rather  than  chronologically.  It  has,  in  addition, 
valuable  bibliographies  for  each  section. 

71 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

of  his  remarks  apply  to  both  sections  of  the 
Canon.  He  shows  how  the  blood  of  the  mar- 
tyrs, that  became  the  seed  of  the  Church,  was 
mainly  shed  in  defence  of  the  Bible,  possession 
of  which  was  taken  by  the  pagans  as  a  sure 
sign  of  treason  (I).  Both  in  the  Christian  em- 
pire and  among  the  Germans  the  Bible  was 
made  the  basis  of  much  legislation  and  still 
more  of  authoritative  dogma  (II  and  III).  In 
the  Middle  Ages  it  gave  rise  to  art  and  pil- 
grimages, besides  the  great  sectaries  (IV-V). 
Its  influence  on  language,  literature,  and  thought 
lasted  on  almost  to  the  present  day  (VI,  VII). 
While  the  Bible  has  lost  its  central  position  in 
European  thought  at  the  present  time,  Prof. 
Dobschiitz  contends  that  it  will  always  form  a 
basis  for  character  formation  among  serious 
natures  (VII).  In  all  this  discussion  Prof.  Dob- 
schiitz is  speaking  rather  as  a  sociologist  than 
a  theologian,  and  leaves  out  of  account,  for  the 
most  part,  the  influence  of  the  Bible  on  the 
subtleties  of  theology. 

But  it  is  not  merely  on  the  externalities  of 
languages  and  institutions,  closely  as  these  may 
come  home  to  the  heart  of  the  European  peo- 
ples, that  the  Bible  has  left  its  deepest  impress. 

72 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

European  religion,  taken  in  its  broadest  sense, 
is  the  religion  of  the  Bible.  Putting  aside,  for 
the  moment,  the  differences  between  the  two 
Testaments,  the  religion  of  Israel  freed  man- 
kind from  that  worship  of  Luck  and  Fate  which 
is  at  the  basis  of  all  savagery.  It  recognized 
that  human  affairs  and  human  character  were 
ruled  by  high  principles  which  soared  above 
individual  existence  and  bound  men  together  in 
common  allegiance  to  noble  ends;  it  further 
connected  each  individual  soul  with  the  Source 
of  these  principles — the  Ruler  of  the  universe. 
Human  nature  was  at  once  dignified  by  this 
notion  of  personal  communion  with  the  Highest 
Being,  while  at  the  same  time  it  was  deepened 
and  solemnized  by  a  sense  of  sin  as  treason 
toward  the   Spirit  of  the   universe.^ 

The  very  notion  of  a  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
as  distinct  from  the  secular  and  mundane  polit- 
ical state  gave  men  an  ideal  toward  which  they 
might    strive    and,    at    the    same    time,    a    touch- 

^  There  Is  some  evidence  that  the  later  mysteries  of  Greek 
and  Roman  religion  tended  toward  the  same  personal  com- 
munion with  the  gods;  but  not  all  Greeks  and  Romans  were 
initiates,  and  the  essence  of  the  official  classic  religions  was  out- 
side the  individual  life.  See,  however,  "Communion  with  Deity," 
in  Hastings'  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics. 

73 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Stone  by  which  they  could  distinguish  between 
law,  morals,  and  other  folk-ways.  It  is,  there- 
fore, not  surprising  that  the  Jews  alone  of 
ancient  peoples  conceived  the  notion  of  general 
progress  in  their  Messianic  conception.  As  has 
often  been  pointed  out,  Greeks  and  Romans 
look  back  upon  the  past  as  the  golden  age. 
The  Jews  alone  look  forward  to  the  coming  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  and  its  Messiah  in  the 
golden  future.  Nor  was  there  any  excluslve- 
ness  in  the  picture  drawn  of  this  future  felicity. 
While  regarding  themselves,  as  all  nations  and 
sects  do,  as  specially  called  upon  to  carry  aloft 
their  own  ideals,  they  regarded  their  mission  as 
fulfilled  only  when  all  the  nations  of  the  earth 
should  be  blessed  in  their  seed.^ 

But  perhaps  the  profoundest  influence  that 
the  Bible  has  exercised  upon  human  thought  and 
action  has  been  the  tender  care  for  the  bearers 
of  the  burden  of  humanity  shown  by  both  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets.  Everyone  recognizes 
with  Renan  that  the  prophets  were  the  first 
socialists.  ^Ye  recognize  the  kinship  of  Maz- 
zini  with  Isaiah  or  Hosea,  when  he  pleads  the 
cause  of  the  poor.     But  the  spirit  that  animates 

'Gen.  18,  18. 

74 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

such  a  code  as  that  contained  in  the  Book  of 
the  Covenant  (Exodus  21-23)  is  equally  full  of 
thought  for  the  down-trodden,  put  into  straight- 
forward legislation.  If  that  code  were  fully 
carried  out,  even  at  the  present  day,  there  would 
not  be  so  much  murmuring  and  gnashing  of 
teeth  from  below.  If  weights  and  measures 
were  always  true;  if  he  that  smiteth  a  man 
were  surely  put  to  death;  if  no  bribe  were  taken; 
If  the  poor  man's  pledge  were  returned  to  him 
at  eve;  if  the  alien  or  the  widow  or  the  orphan 
were  not  vexed  nor  afflicted;  if  all  damage  done 
were  made  good;  if  the  worker's  wage  were  never 
kept  from  him,  and  so  on,  the  evils  of  a  capi- 
talistic system  would  be  much  reduced. 

When  confining  our  estimate  of  the  influence 
of  the  Bible  to  the  Old  Testament,  as  we  must 
do  for  the  present  purpose,  we  have  to  leave 
out  of  account  the  appeal  of  the  motive  of  the 
life  beyond  the  grave,  which  has  had  so  much 
influence  in  modern  religion.  It  is  perhaps  the 
most  striking  characteristic  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment that  it  practically  makes  no  appeal  to  this 
motive.  There  are  slight  traces  of  a  belief  in 
a  future  life,  dim  and  unattractive  as  this  may 
be;   but  no   prophet,   no   psalmist   appeals   to   its 

75 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

existence  as  a  reason  for  living  the  higher  life 
and  obeying  the  high  motive.  Later  on,  under 
the  influence  of  Persia,  Jews  acquired  the  notion 
of  Paradise  as  a  counterbalance  to  the  concep- 
tion of  Sheol,  and  then  made  the  two  appeals 
more  stringent  and  effective;  but  in  the  Old 
Testament  itself  the  appeal  is  never  made,  and 
we  cannot,  therefore,  reckon  it  in  when  estimating 
the  influence  of  what  we  have  called  the  Bible 
on  European  civilization. 

The  influence  of  the  Bible  on  European  cul- 
ture reaches  its  culmination,  of  course,  in  its 
monotheism.  The  worship  of  the  One  Lord  of 
the  universe  has  now  become  so  ingrained  in 
the  European  mind  that  it  is  difficult  to  realize 
the  reverence  paid  to  the  multitude  of  local 
deities  which  characterized  the  classical  world. 
It  is  true  that  in  the  more  modern  worship  of 
saints  we  have  something  analogous  to  the  more 
ancient  reverence  for  local  deities.  It  is  also 
true  that  in  the  development  of  Greek  thought 
and  in  the  syncretism  of  the  great  empires  a 
tendency  grew  to  recognize  One  Supreme  Being, 
so  that  in  theory  the  world  was  prepared  for 
acceptance  of  the  One  God.  But  while  the 
saints  may  possibly  be   regarded  as  survivals   of 

76 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

the  old  local  deities,  they  are  never  regarded, 
even  by  the  most  superstitious,  as  of  equal  rank 
with  the  Most  High,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  more  philosophic  pagans,  even  down  to  the 
Emperor  Julian,  still  regarded  the  minor  deities 
of  the  Pantheon  as  possessing  noumenal  exist- 
ence. Without  the  Bible  and  Bible  religion  Eu- 
ropeans would,  so  far  as  we  know,  still  be  wor- 
shipping the  gods,  probably  by  animal  sacrifices. 
This  obvious  truth  appears  to  be  a  source  of 
irritation  to  many  proud  "Aryans."  From  Las- 
sen and  Renan  to  Delitzsch  and  Chamberlain, 
they  seek  to  minimize.  In  one  way  or  another, 
the  debt  they  are  forced  to  acknowledge  to 
Israel  for  teaching  them  to  worship  the  One 
God.  Renan's  peculiar  and  bizarre  thesis  was 
that  monotheism  is  simply  an  Instinct  of  a  desert 
folk  as  all  Semites  originally  were,  who  had, 
therefore,  nothing  visible  to  worship  in  the  wide 
expanse  of  the  sandy  desert  which  represented 
for  them  the  Infinite.  Monotheism  in  this  sense, 
far  from  being  the  highest  form  of  religion,  is, 
according  to  Renan,  merely  the  minimum  of 
faith,  the  most  negative  form  of  the  worship 
of  the  ideal.  Renan's  views  in  this  regard  have 
been  driven  out  of  the  court  of  critical  opinion 

77 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

mainly  by  the  consideration  that  not  all  Semites 
were  monotheistic,  but  only  the  Israelites,  and 
that  the  characteristic  of  the  monotheism  of 
Israel  is  its  ethical  character;^  only  in  Israel 
do  we  find  united  the  lordship  of  the  two  worlds, 
which  aroused  Kant's  awe — "the  starry  heavens 
abov'e,  the  moral  law  within." 

Of  recent  years,  however,  the  attempt  has 
been  made  by  Prof.  Delitzsch,  of  Berlin,  to  de- 
clare that  this  ethical  monotheism  was  not  orig- 
inal with  Israel,  but  existed  among  the  Baby- 
lonians, from  whom  it  is  thereby  asserted  that 
the  Israelites  obtained  the  sublime  notion.  The 
myths  and  legends  of  the  early  chapters  of 
Genesis  have  been  shown  to  be,  in  almost  every 
case,  similar  to,  and  therefore  probably  derived 
from,  analogous  portions  of  Chaldaic  mytholog}'. 
But,  as  Prof.  Morris  Jastrow  has  ably  shown. 
In  every  case  the  form  given  to  the  myth  by  the 
biblical  narrators  is  distinctly  Imbued  with  the 
specific  ethical  monotheism  of  the  Hebrews. 
Thus    in   the   myth   of    Creation   the    Babylonian 

^Steinthal  points  out  very  pertinently  that  not  alone  some  of 
the  nomad  Semites  (after  Muhammed)  but  also  some  of  the 
noblest  Greek  philosophers  were  monotheists  {Ueber  Juden  und 
Judenthum,  Berlin,  1910,  p.  94).  Had  the  latter  but  a  minimum 
of  religion  ? 

78 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

account  remains  always  on  the  level  of  the  nature- 
myth,  whereas  the  biblical  account  removes  the 
element  of  conflict  between  the  different  gods, 
and  makes  the  whole  creation  the  outcome  of  a 
Spirit  anterior  even  to  light/  The  Jews  bor- 
rowed the  material  of  the  Creation  and  other 
similar  myths  from  the  Babylonians,  it  is  true; 
but  the  form  they  gave  in  every  case  was  their 
own,  and  whether  the  fundamental  religious  views 
of  the  Hebrews  were  derived  from  the  Baby- 
lonians or  not  scarcely  affects  the  fact  that  Eu- 
ropean civilization  derived  its  fundamental  faith 
from  the  Jews. 

One  scarcely  understands  this  reluctance  to 
admit  indebtedness  for  ideals  to  external  sources. 
A  people  or  a  nation  works  out  its  own  ideals 
to  the  extreme  limit,  and  then  can  only  hope 
for  expansion  or  improvement  of  them  by  cross- 
fertilization  with  the  ideals  of  others,  with  which 
they  are  at  first  not  so  much  In  sympathy."'     This 

^  M.  Jastrow,  Hebrezv  and  Babylonia?i  Traditions,  New  York, 
1914,  chapter  H. 

"  In  the  education  of  the  human  race,  to  use  Lessing's  noble 
conception,  we  cannot  proceed  otherwise  than  in  the  paedagogics 
of  an  individual.  When  I  was  a  teacher,  and  one  of  my  pupils 
declared  tl>at  he  couldn't  stand  Euclid,  I  always  used  to  say: 
"That's  the  very  proof  that  you  need  training  in  geometry,  for 
it  is  there  that  your  mental  capacity  is  obviously  weakest." 

79 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS   TO    CIVILIZATION 

is  true  of  the  highest  as  of  the  lowest  forms  of 
culture.  The  Mongols  of  China  and  Japan 
have  been  mainly  influenced  in  their  religious 
thought  by  the  Aryan  religion  of  Buddha.  The 
Hamites  of  Africa  have  recognized  the  highest 
that  could  appeal  to  them  in  the  Islam  of  Se- 
mitic Arabia.  The  Hebrews  themselves,  in  post- 
biblical  times,  were  clearly  influenced  by  the 
angelology  and  demonology  of  Persia.  Why 
should  it  be  thought  anomalous  or  beneath  the 
dignity  of  Europeans  to  have  supplemented  their 
own  ideals  by  adopting  for  their  highest  ideal- 
ism the  religion  of  Israel?  Steinthal  draws  apt 
attention  to  a  parallel  influence  of  Semites  on 
an  Aryan  people  in  the  remarkable  Renaissance 
which  came  to  Persia  after  its  conquest  by  the 
Arabs.  Persian  art,  as  we  know — its  textiles, 
its  pottery,  its  illuminations — was  entirely  due 
to  this  Semitic  Renaissance.  The  Persian  lan- 
guage was  re-made  under  Arabic  influence;  the 
great  Persian  epic  of  FIrdausi  is  of  this  period,, 
and  the  mystic  poets,  Sadi  and  the  rest,  are  a 
felicitous  combination  of  Aryan  and  Semite.^  I 
would  add  that  Persia  showed  equal  powers  of 

^  See  my  Introduction  to  The  Rose  Garden  of  Persia,  London, 
1898. 

80 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

influencing  Islam,  which  owed  to  it  the  Barme- 
cides and  probably  the  "Arabian  Nights,"  as 
well  as  the  one  great  Islamic  heresy.  Mr.  Mur- 
ray, in  his  History  of  Chess,^  points  out  that  it 
was  Persian  armies  that  placed  the  Abbasids 
on  the  throne,  that  the  whole  organization  of 
the  state  was  Persian,  and,  he  adds,  that  the  his- 
tory of  Muslim  Chess  is  largely  the  history 
of  Persian  players.  The  more  we  study  the 
history  of  civilization  the  more  we  find  this 
give-and-take  of  different  cultures  as  the  neces- 
sary condition  for  its  development.  Why,  then, 
should  Chamberlain  &  Co."  object  to  recog- 
nizing a  certain  indebtedness  of  European  cul- 
ture to  Jewish  influence  in  religion? 

How  Europe  has  repaid  this  indebtedness  to 
Israel  need  not  be  here  touched  upon.  I  am 
more  concerned  to  state  that  there  has  never 
been  any  claim  by  Jews  for  any  such  payment; 
nor  would  such  claim  be  justified.  Nor  would 
it  be  politic;  gratitude  to  one  individual  for 
favors  received  is  nominally  tempered  by  re- 
sentment   against    the    scheme    of    things    which 

'P.  158. 

"Whenever  I  speak  of  Chamberlain  &  Co.,  I  refer  to  points 
which  Mr.  Chamberlain  shares  with  many  predecessors.  Those 
peculiar  to  himself  are  referred  to  under  his  own  name. 

81 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

causes  the  necessity  for  receiving  favors.  If 
Mr.  Popakopoulus,  who  does  me  the  honor  to 
blacken  my  shoes  occasionally,  attempts  to  scamp 
his  work  or  cheat  me  out  of  my  change,  I  am 
not  inclined  to  regard  his  lapses  with  more 
leniency  because  he  may  possibly  have  within 
his  veins  some  of  the  blood  of  an  ^schylus  or 
a  Plato.  So,  too,  if  Pietro  Vivanti  sells  me 
inedible  fruit  or  does  not  carry  through  a  piece 
of  work  he  has  agreed  to  do,  I  should  remain 
unaffected  by  his  pleadings  (which  he  is  scarcely 
likely  to  make)  that  he  is  descended  from  Lu- 
cretius or  Horace.  Just  in  the  same  way  Mr. 
Abramsky,  or  Mr.  Isaacstein,  or  let  us  even  say 
Mr.  Jacobs,  has  no  diploma  entitling  him  to  do 
inefficient  work  or  a  piece  of  underhand  trickery 
because  he  may  be  a  direct  descendant  of  Samuel 
or  Hosea.  In  fact,  in  all  these  cases,  the  pos- 
session of  so  illustrious  a  pedigree  only  creates 
the  greater  disappointment  if  its  possessors  fall 
short  of  the  current  standards  of  manners  or 
morals  found  in  the  ordinary  citizen.  Noblesse 
oblige  should  be  the  slogan  of  noble  races  as 
well  as  of  noble  families. 

No,    the   claim   the   Jews   have   upon    Europe,, 
owing  to   their   special   relation   to   the   Bible,   is 

82 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

something  other  and  more  important  from  our 
present  point  of  view.  Europe  has  learnt  from 
the  Jewish  Bible  the  fundamentals  of  social  jus- 
tice and  righteousness  as  part  of  its  religion. 
When,  therefore,  Jews  knock  at  the  doors  of 
Europe  and  claim,  as  they  are  doing,  social 
recognition  after  they  hav^e  obtained  political 
equality,  they  may  fairly  say:  "You  and  we  are 
brothers  in  spirit,  we  are  both  sons  of  the  Book." 
Chamberlain  &  Co.  are  always  reiterating  the 
charge  that  the  Jews  are  Orientals  camped  in 
Europe.  But  so  great  has  been  the  influence 
upon  European  culture  in  its  fundamental  aspects 
by  ancient  Israel  that  we  might  almost  transpose 
the  relation  and  say,  as  has  indeed  been  said, 
that  the  ancient  Israelites  were  Europeans  en- 
camped in  Western  Asia.  Whether  due  to 
the  influence  of  the  Bible  or  not,  there  is  more 
spiritual  affinity  between  Germans  and  the 
Israelites  of  the  Bible  than  between  the  Israelites 
and,  say,  Egyptians  or  Assyrians.^  When  Max 
Miiller   planned   his   Sacred   Books   of   the   East, 

*  The  Teutonic  tone  of  the  Books  of  Samuel  is  indeed  note- 
worthy in  this  regard.  At  one  time  I  had  thought  of  translating 
the  Septuagint  version  of  Samuel  (which  is  fuller  in  several 
places)  under  the  title  "The  Saga  of  King  David  and  King 
Saul." 

83 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

he  consciously  or  unconsciously  gave  a  Western 
position  to  the  Bible  by  omitting  It  from  his 
list.  Indeed,  when  one  turns  over  the  weary, 
dreary  pages  of  these  volumes,  the  contrast  both 
as  literature  and  as  inspiration  is  indeed  striking. 
Mr.  Chamberlain,  who  so  frequently  Insists  upon 
the  superiority  of  the  Indo-Teuton  religion, 
ought,  as  a  punishment,  to  be  compelled  to  read 
through  the  whole  of  the  fifty  volumes  of  the 
Sacred  Books  of  the  East. 

Chief  among  the  contrasts  which  differentiate 
the  Bible  from  the  other  Sacred  Books  of  the 
East  is  the  notion  of  progress,  which  is  so 
essentially  European  and  Incidentally,  I  may  say, 
prophetic.  Bagehot  used  to  Insist  upon  the  ex- 
treme rarity  of  the  notion  of  progress  in  the 
history  of  humanity.  Savages  regard  what  is 
as  the  norm ;  they  cannot  conceive  of  change 
either  in  the  past  or  the  future.  As  against 
this,  the  Hebrew  prophets,  with  splendid  indig- 
nation, regarded  the  present  condition  of  their 
nation  as  abominable,  and  felt  a  confident  hope 
that  the  divine  plan  of  the  universe  involved 
an  amelioration  not  alone  for  themselves  but 
for  the  whole  world. 

Now  in  the  divine  plan  of  the  prophets  there 
84 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

were  two  elements  which  distinguished  the  He- 
braic ideals  from  those  of  all  others  and  which 
have  extorted  the  imagination  and  admiration 
of  Europe.  The  first  of  these  is  the  idealiza- 
tion of  the  poor  and  suffering  as  the  type  of  the 
good  man/  The  Bible  is  emphatically  on  the 
side  of  the  "under-dog,"  and  in  prophetic  dic- 
tion God  is  mainly  regarded  as  the  Protector 
of  the  poor.  This  is  against  the  whole  spirit 
of  classical  antiquity,  which  regards  the  Ka- 
lokagathos  as  the  ideal  man,  and  always  regards 
the  gods  as  fighting  on  the  side  of  the  winners 
in  life's  battles.  Indeed,  though  Europe  has 
nominally  accepted  the  Hebraic  idealization  of 
the  poor  and  has  done  heroic  work  of  recent 
years  on  the  divine  plan  of  the  Hebrew  prophets, 
yet  it  has  been  on  the  whole  against  the  grain, 
and  the  natural  tendency  of  the  natural  man  Is  to 
applaud  and  to  admire  the  rich  and  strong. 
Nietzsche,  as  Is  well  known,  developed  a  whole 
anti-Gospel  on  these  lines. 

The  second  unexpected  Ideal  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets  Is  that  which  holds  up  peace  as  the 
final  aim  of  humanity.     This  ideal  again  is  far 

^See  Isidore  Loeb,  La  Religion  des  Pauvres  dans   la  Bible, 
Paris,  1892. 

85 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

from  being  congenial  to  the  European  or  even 
to  the  Indo-European  character.  The  warrior 
is  the  ideal  type  among  Brahmins,  Homeric 
Hellenes,  Romans,  Celts,  and  Vikings.  The 
charfne  or  battle-joy  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Ber- 
serkir  rage  of  the  \'ikings  illustrate  what  I  mcan.^ 
Even  to  the  present  day  the  soldier  is  the  idol 
of  the  populace,  and  men  who  profess  the  Gospel 
of  the  Prince  of  Peace  have  not  been  ashamed 
to  advocate  a  gospel  of  war.  Whenever  an  ad- 
ditional subsidy  was  needed  in  the  Reichstag, 
Moltke  would  dilate  upon  the  ennobling  and  self- 
sacrificing  character  of  the  soldier's  life,  and  his 
successor.  Von  der  Goltz,  has  written  down  a 
veritable  gospel  of  war  in  his  Nation  in  AnnsJ- 
Yet  though  Europe  has  only  imperfectly  as- 
similated the  Jewish  ideals  of  poverty  as  spiritual 

^  My  friend,  Prof.  R.  G.  Moulton,  points  out,  in  the  Introduc- 
tion to  his  Modern  Readers'  Bible,  that  the  war  idea  is  kept 
alive  nowadays  by  reading  the  Greek  and  Roman  classics  and 
literature  derived  from  them;  he, considers  Bible  readings  would 
be  an  antidote. 

^  Even  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  in  an  interview  he  once  gave 
at  San  Francisco,  declared  that  he  did  not  see  the  superiority  of 
the  slow  deaths  caused  by  commercial  competition  over  the  quick 
and  honorable  departure  from  the  world  on  the  battlefield. 
Only  in  these  latter  days  are  men  gradually  being  convinced  of 
the  iniquity  of  war  by  its  disastrous  effects  upon  the  Stock  Ex- 
change (Norman  Angell). 

86 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

riches  and  of  peace  as  the  international  goal,  after 
all  it  has  accepted  these  aims  as  part  of  the  notion 
of  progress,  which  it  took  over  in  large  measure 
from  the  Hebrew  Bible.  Certainly  there  is  no 
incongruity  in  Europe  accepting  Jews  into  its 
spiritual  brotherhood  because  of  its  imperfect 
acceptance  of  the  ideals  of  poverty  and  peace. 
There  are  movements  on  either  side  which,  at  any 
rate  in  regard  to  the  former  icieal,  have  made 
an  approximation  easy.  St.  Francis  took  poverty 
for  his  bride,  and  made  it  the  badge  of  his  friars, 
while  Jews,  on  the  other  hand,  have,  from  his- 
toric and  human  reasons,  laid  aside  a  good  deal 
of  the  old  Hebraic  admiration  for  poverty, 
emphasizing  rather  the  very  human  view  of 
biblical  wisdom  that  wealth  should  be  the  reward 
of  virtue. 

I  have  laid  stress  upon  the  identity  of  ideals 
among  modern  Europeans  and  modern  Jews 
owing  to  their  common  derivation  from  the 
ideals  of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  because,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  this  is  the  dominating  fact  in  discussing 
what  is  known  as  the  Jewish  question.  This, 
in  the  last  resort,  is  raised  by  the  doubts  cast 
by  the  higher  anti-Semites  whether  Jews  have 
sufficiently  the  same  ideals  to  be  received  within 

87 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

the  higher  culture  of  Europe  and  America  with- 
out danger  to  that  culture.  If  indeed  there  were 
such  fundamental  differences  of  ideals  between 
Jews  and  others/  there  might  be  something  in 
the  "cultural  menace,"  of  which  some  academic 
anti-Semites  in  America  speak  so  glibly  when 
talking  of  Jews.  Cultures  can  only  cross-fer- 
tilize when  they  are  sufficiently  alike  to  form 
part  of  the  same  species.  If  they  are  abso- 
lutely incongruous,  however  perfect  each  may 
be  in  its  own  way,  any  attempt  to  combine  the 
two  must  necessarily  result  in  failure.  Take 
the  case  of  the  Japanese.  From  what  I  have 
seen,  heard,  and  read  of  the  Japanese  nation, 
they  have  a  sensitiveness  of  honor  (Bushido), 
an  intensity  of  patriotism,  a  joyousness  of  out- 
look upon  life,  a  refined  courtesy  which,  in  each 
aspect,  surpasses  the  stage  reached  by  Euro- 
peans.^ Yet  in  my  opinion  it  would  be  dan- 
gerous, if  not  impossible,  to  implant  the  same 
ideals  and  tendencies  among  Europeans,  who, 
owing  to  the  absence  of  a  common  historic  foun- 

*  On  the  actual  difference  of  ideals,  see  next  chapter,  "The 
Church  and  the  Jews." 

"In  judging  of  the  Japanese  character  I  have  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  enjoying  the  friendship  of  my  college  chum.  Baron 
Dairoku  Kikuchi. 

88 


THE    PEOPLE    OF    THE    BOOK 

dation,  must  always  regard  Japanese  and  Chinese 
as  alien,  not  alone  in  race  and  nationality,  but 
also  in  culture.  With  the  Jews  it  is  different; 
the  foundations  for  the  two  cultures  concerned 
are  the  same,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  the  structures 
reared  upon  these  foundations  during  the  last 
two  thousand  years  have  been,  in  large  measure, 
identical,  except  in  so  far  as  this  has  been  pre- 
vented by  ecclesiastical  tyranny.  Both  Europeans 
and  Jews  have  claim  to  the  title  of  the  People 
of  the  Book. 


89 


CHAPTER   II 

The  Church  and  the  Jews 

In  the  preceding  chapter  we  have  seen  that 
the  fundamental  conceptions  of  European  civil- 
ization— the  notion  of  social  progress  through 
righteousness  and  the  solemnization  of  life 
through  the  idea  of  personal  communion  with 
the  divine — have  been  derived  both  by  Jews 
and  Gentiles  from  the  Old  Testament,  which 
thus  becomes  a  spiritual  bond  between  them. 
But  it  is  not  alone  merely  the  outlines  of  this 
civilization  which  are  common  to  Jew  and  Gen- 
tile; many  of  the  details  are  identical,  and  for 
the  same  reason,  because  derived  from  the  folk- 
ways of  ancient  Israel.  During  the  first  fifteen 
Christian  centuries  the  culture  of  Christendom 
was,  in  large  measure,  created  by  the  Church, 
and  both  in  creed  and  ritual  the  undivided 
Western  Church,  in  its  beginnings  and  largely 
throughout  its  career,  was  Jewish  in  form  and 
tone, 

90 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JEWS 

This  Is  seen  both  in  ritual  and  in  institutions, 
as  well  as  in  doctrine.  The  Common  Prayer, 
both  of  Church  and  Synagogue,  is  based  upon 
the  Psalter,  "the  hymn-book  of  the  Second  Tem- 
ple." When  one  speaks  of  a  Te  Deum  or  a 
Magnificat,  a  Miserere,  or  In  exitu  Israel,  the 
reference  is  to  the  Psalms  of  the  Vulgate  as 
used  in  the  Roman  Church.^  The  Trisagion  of 
the  Greek  Church  is  merely  the  Kedushah  of 
the  Jewish  service,  itself  derived  from  the  an- 
gelic respond  of  Is,  6,  3.  The  central  function 
of  the  Church  .service,  the  mass  (or  in  Protes- 
tant churches  the  communion),  derives  its  "ele- 
ments," in  the  last  resort,  from  the  wine  and 
unleavened  bread  used  at  the  home  service  of 
the  Passover,  and  Bickell  has  shown  that  the 
original  ritual  of  the  mass  is  derived  from  that 
of  the  Seder  service  in  Jewish  homes  on  the  first 
night  of  the  Passover."  The  First  and  Second 
Lessons  of  the  Church,  derived  respectively  from 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  are  simply  an  imi- 
tation of  the  practice  of  the  Synagogue  to  read 

^  On  the  general  influence  of  the  Psahns  on  Christian  life  and 
thought,  see  Prothero,  The  Psalms  in  History  and  Biography, 
in  "Everyman's  Library." 

"Messe  und  Pascha,  1872;  English  translation,  The  Lord's 
Supper  and  the  Passover  Ritual,  London,  1892. 

91 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

sections  from  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  every 
sabbath.  There  are  even  indications  that  at  an 
early  stage  the  same  passages  were  read  in  both 
places  of  worship  at  the  same  period  of  the  year/ 
Churches  are  "oriented"  because  synagogues 
had  their  holy  ark  against  the  eastern  walls  so 
that  worshippers  might  face  towards  Jerusalem. 
The  eastern  position  of  the  priest,  over  which 
such  violent  controversies  have  arisen  in  the 
Church,  is  due  to  the  same  cause.  The  vest- 
ments of  priests  and  bishops  can  be  traced  back 
to  those  of  the  Israelite  priests.  The  font  of 
baptism  is  immediately  derived  from  the  Mikweh, 
or  ritual  bath  of  Jewish  practice,  though  now 
only  used  in  the  Church  for  new-born  infants. 
The  Church  altar  represents,  in  position  and 
significance,  the  holy  of  holies  of  the  Jewish 
Tabernacle  and  Temple.  The  position  of  the 
pulpit  recalls  that  of  the  "Bemah,"  from  which 
the  Jewish  homilist  of  talmudic  times  used  to 
utter  his  expository  or  consoling  words.  Anoint- 
ing was  a  Jewish  custom  long  before  it  was  a 
Christian  one;  indeed,  the  Avord  "Messiah"  sim- 
ply means  "anointed,"   as  does  its  Greek  equiva- 

*  See    my    article,    Triennial    Cycle,    in   Jenvish   Encyclopedia, 
vol.  xii. 

02 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JEWS 

lent  "Christ."  The  notion  of  church  asylum 
is  clearly  derived  from  that  of  the  cities  of  refuge 
in  the  Levitical  scheme. 

The  Church  owes  nearly  as  much  of  its  Insti- 
tutions to  Jewish  example  as  of  ritual  and  cere- 
monial. Thus  Hatch  has  shown  that,  in  all 
probability,  the  bishop  derives  from  the  gabhai 
or  treasurer  or  "overseer"  (hence  the  name 
"Episcopus")  of  the  synagogue.  One  may  even 
conjecture  that  the  peculiar  form  of  the  episcopal 
blessing  with  two  erect  fingers  is  merely  a  modi- 
fication of  the  priestly  blessing  with  hand  up- 
lifted and  the  fingers  separated  in  pairs.  The 
elders  of  the  Church  are  but  a  duplicate  of  the 
elders  of  the  Synagogue.  Visiting  the  sick  was 
one  of  the  recognized  modes  of  Jewish  corporal 
charity  long  before  it  became  a  characteristic 
of  Christian  philanthropy.  It  is  still  a  matter 
of  dispute  whether  hospitals  did  not  originate 
among  Jews.  But  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
the  charity  boxes  of  churches  came  from  the 
same  practice  in  the  synagogues.  Simon  ben 
Shetah  established  religious  schools  among  Jews 
long  before  there  is  any  trace  of  Sunday-schools 
among  Christians.  The  whole  method  of  ordi- 
nation  of   priests   is   a   direct   descendant   of  the 

93 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Semikah  or  laying  on  of  hands  of  Jewish  prac- 
tice, which  gave  the  power  to  "bind  and  loose" 
just  as  In  the  Christian  Church,  The  missionary 
character  of  early  Christianity  was  only  a  repe- 
tition of  the  missionary  spirit  of  the  Judaism  of 
the  time  which  Harnack  grants  was  a  prepara- 
tion for  the  Christian  mission/  Even  the  Canon 
Law  of  the  Church  has  not  been  without  influence 
from  Jewish  sources.'  To  quote  but  one  example : 
The  tables  of  forbidden  relations  are,  in  the 
main,  derived  from  the  Levitical  laws  about  in- 
cest, and  it  is  well  known  that  the  objection  to 
marrying  a  deceased  wife's  sister  was  based  upon 
Leviticus  19." 

But  it  is  not  alone  in  the  externalities  of 
ritual  and  institutions  that  this  dependence  of 
Christianity  on  Judaism  can  be  traced;  the  fun- 
damental ideas  of  the  theologies  of  both  re- 
ligions are  practically  identical.  "The  Kingdom 
of  Heaven"  is  so  essentially  a  Jewish  concep- 
tion that  few  outsiders,  who  use  the  expression, 
are   aware   of  its   exact  meaning.      So  scrupulous 

^Mission  and  Expansion  of  Christianity,  vol.  i,  p.  55. 

"  Aptowitzer,  Je=wish  Quarterly  Revieiv,  Nets:  Series,  vol.  i,  p. 
217,  seq.;  vol.  ii,  p.  55,  seq. 

^Lagarde,  The  Laiv  \ot  to  Marry  a  Deceased  JVife's  Sister, 
Leyden,  1878. 

94 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JEWS 

were  Jews  in  avoiding  the  use  of  the  word 
"God"  that  they  utiHzed  various  euphemisms 
in  its  stead,  among  which  the  favorite  expres- 
sion was  "Heaven";  the  "Kingdom  of  Heaven" 
is,  therefore,  merely  the  Jewish  equivalent  for 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  It  has  been  well  said 
that  the  chief  ideas  that  ruled  the  Middle  Ages 
can  be  traced  back  to  Augustine's  De  Civitate 
Dei,  which  is  only  a  Latin  form  of  the  Jewish 
conception  of  the  "Kingdom  of  Heaven."  Dr. 
Tennant  has  developed  several  interesting  trea- 
tises showing  that  the  Christian  notion  of  Orig- 
inal Sin  is  almost  entirely  derived  from  Jewish 
conceptions,  though  it  must  be  allowed  that  it 
has  received  much  more  elaborate  development 
in  Church  doctrine.  This  is  probably  due  to 
the  fact  that  in  Judaism  this  rather  harsh  and 
one-sided  conception  was  modified  by  the  parallel 
doctrine  of  what  the  Rev.  S.  Levy  has  aptly 
termed  Original  Virtue,  by  which  the  offspring 
of  virtuous  parents  have  a  kind  of  super-added 
merit;  the  special  Hebrew  term  is  "the  merit 
of  the  fathers."  ^  As  a  counterpart  to  these 
notions  which  are,  after  all,  only  the  theological 

^  See  S.  Levy,  Original  Virtue,  and  Other  Short  Studies,  Lon- 
don, 1907. 

95 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

counterpart  of  the  biological  notion  of  heredity, 
Jewish  theology,  even  in  Bible  times,  has  devel- 
oped the  idea  of  God's  Grace  as  vouchsafed  to 
his  special  favorites,  though  here  again  it  must 
be  allowed  that  Christian  theologians  have  ex- 
panded the  notion  into  innumerable  side-chan- 
nels which  come  to  a  head,  not  alone  in  Calvinism, 
but  in  the  Jansenism  of  Port  Royal.  But  the 
original  germ  is  there  in  the  Synagogue.  The 
Fatherhood  of  God  is  a  commonplace  of  Hebrew 
thought,  nor  is  the  analogous  conception  of  the 
Son  of  God  altogether  alien  to  Jewish  notions. 
The  idea  of  a  Chosen  People,  so  obnoxious  to 
many  Christians,  was  taken  over  bodilv  by  early 
Christians,  who,  as  Harnack  has  shown, ^  regarded 
the  world  as  created  for  their  sakes,  just  as  Jews 
had  previously  done." 

The  close  connection  of  Church  and  Syna- 
gogue in  matter  of  belief  is  nowhere  more  strik- 
ingly shown  than  in  their  eschatology.  As  was 
mentioned  in  the  last  chapter,  the  Old  Testament 
shows  little  interest  in  the  life  after  death,  but 
between  the  two  Testaments  the  Jews  acquired 
from  the  Persians  a  deep  interest  in  the  future  of 

^  Loc.  cit. 

-IV  Ezra,  vi,  54-9,  edit.  Charles,  ii,  579. 
06 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JEWS 

the  soul,  as  well  as  a  whole  system  of  angelology 
and  demonology  connected  with  this  conception. 
The  vague  conception  of  Sheol  as  the  abode  of 
the  dim  ghosts  of  the  dead  became  intensified 
into  the  notion  of  Gehenna  (itself  a  Jerusalem 
locality  where  garbage  was  burned)  which,  in 
contrast  to  the  Persian  Paradise,  was  regarded 
as  the  abode  of  sinful  souls.  The  resurrection 
of  the  dead  at  the  day  of  last  judgment  thus  be- 
came added  to  Jewish  hopes  and  fears;  the  Angel 
of  Death  became  a  prominent  feature  of  Jewish 
mytholog}'.  All  this  was  taken  over  by  the 
Church,  which  even  improved  the  occasion  by 
emphasizing  the  terrors  of  Hell.  The  deepened 
sense  of  the  consequences  of  sin,  which  was  thus 
brought  about,  led  to  further  developments  of 
the  doctrine  of  Atonement,  already  conspicuous 
in  Old  Testament  theology.  Mr.  Montefiore  has 
pointed  out  that  the  notion  of  Repentance,  as  the 
necessary  preliminary  to  Atonement,  is  charac- 
teristically Jewish  and  that  in  this  regard  Jesus 
was  more  Jewish  than  "Christian."  ^  Con- 
fession of  sin  as  a  proof  of  Repentance  is  again 
a  Jewish  practice  which  was  developed  by  the 
Church  into  one  of  its  most  characteristic  institu- 

^  Jeivis/i  Quarterly  Revieiv,  xvi,  pp.  209-257. 
97 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

tions.  At  the  same  time  was  developed  a  notion 
of  mental  diseases  being  produced  by  demons 
which  could  be  exorcised  by  powerful  personalities 
and  their  disciples,  a  notion  which  was  taken  up 
in  its  entirety  in  the  New  Testament.^  The  use 
of  charms  and  amulets  developed  from  this  notion 
both  among  Jews  and  Christians. 

It  is  needless  to  remark  that  the  whole  notion 
of  a  Messiah  is  Jewish  in  origin,  as  the  name 
indeed  indicates."  The  main  question  between  the 
two  creeds  was  whether  the  often  discordant  ele- 
ments, which  could  be  discerned  in  the  biblical 
utterances  about  the  Messiah,  were  "fulfilled"  in 
Jesus;  but  there  was  never  any  doubt  about  the 
origin  of  the  idea  itself.  Jews,  for  the  most  part, 
laid  stress  upon  the  victorious  aspects  of  the  Re- 
deemer; Christians,  for  obvious  reasons,  em- 
phasized his  identity  with  the  Suffering  Servant 
of  the  Lord.^  As  it  turned  out,  the  latter 
"prophecy"  was  destined  to  be  more  literally 
fulfilled  by  the  people  of  Israel  than  by  the  Man 
Jesus. 

^  See  F.  C.  Conybeare  in  Jeivish  Quarterly  Revieiv,  viii,  587, 
seq. 

"  See  above,  p.  92. 
=■18.  S3.  . 

98 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JEWS 

In  considering  the  claims  of  the  Man  of 
Nazareth,  Christian  theologians  find  more  and 
more  difficulty  in  distinguishing  the  doctrines 
he  puts  forth  from  those  to  be  deduced  from 
the  Old  Testament  or  from  its  Apocrypha.  The 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  and  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  are,  as  we  have  seen,  commonplaces  of 
older  Hebrew  thought.  Jesus  himself  bases  his 
whole  system  on  the  Shema',^  and  the  command 
to  love  one's  neighbor  as  one's  self,  taken  from 
Leviticus  19,  18,  or  in  so  many  words,  on  ethical 
monotheism  which  is  the  fundamental  Jewish 
position.  The  Golden  Rule,  it  is  well  known,  had 
been  put  forth,  though  in  a  negative  and  more 
practical  form,  before  the  time  of  Jesus  by  Hillel 
in  the  mere  enunciation  of  the  principle;  and  it 
may  be  here  remarked  that  both  had  been  antici- 
pated by  Confucius.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
has  been  shown  to  be  a  rechaiifee  of  current  Phari- 
saic doctrine,^  while  the  Lord's  Prayer  is  a  cento 
from  the  Jewish  'Amidah,  being  a  shortened  form 
of  five  of  the  original  six  of  the  "Eighteen 
Blessings,"    and   one   of   its   phrases,    "deliver   us 

'  Deuteronomy,  6,  4. 

"  See  G.  Friedlander,  Origin  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
London,  1909. 

99 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

from  the  evil  one,"  is  only  comprehensible  by 
reference  to  the  special  Jewish  conception  of  the 
Yezer  ha-Ra',  or  Evil  Inclination.^  The  notion 
that  Sabbath  was  made  for  man  and  not  man  for 
the  Sabbath  was  not  original  with  Jesus,  and  his 
whole  attitude  toward  the  Law  was  by  no  means 
unusual  at  his  time.  He  risked  and  earned  death 
in  order  to  fulfil  the  commands  of  the  Torah, 
to  keep  the  Passover  in  Jerusalem.  No  wonder 
that  he  himself  declared  that  he  had  come  not 
to  annul  but  to  fulfil  the  Law,"  and  modern 
theologians  can  only  point  vaguely  to  his  person- 
ality as  the  sole  differentia  of  primitive  Chris- 
tianity from  developed  Judaism. 

So  close  was  the  identification  of  the  two  in 
the  early  ages  of  Christianity  that  there  are 
numbers  of  documents  which  the  most  learned 
Christian  theologians  cannot  even  to  this  day 
determine  whether  they  belong  to  one  or  the 
other.  Thus,  to  take  a  recent  example,  the  Odes 
of  Solomon,  discovered  by  Prof.  Rendell  Harris 
in  Syriac,  are  declared  by  him  to  be  specifically 

^  See  C.  Taylor,  Sayings  of  the  Jezvish  Fathers,  1st  edition, 

p.  142. 

"  Matthew   2,    17,   which   is   quoted   in   the   Talmud,    Shabbat 
116  b;  compare  ihid.,  18. 

100 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JEWS 

Christian,  whereas  the  even  greater  authority  of 
Harnack  declares  for  their  Jewish  tone.  One 
of  the  earliest  of  Christian  documents,  the 
"Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles,"  which  was 
used  as  a  catechism  for  Christian  disciples,  has 
been  shown  to  be,  in  its  first  part,  merely  an  ex- 
pansion of  a  similar  work  for  Jewish  neophytes 
entitled  "The  Two  Ways."  The  Didascalia  or 
Apostolic  Constitutions  of  the  early  Church  are 
full  of  Jewish  elements,  as  are  the  Clementine 
Epistles.  In  the  New  Testament  itself,  the  Reve- 
lation of  St.  John  has  been  recently  discovered 
to  be  an  expansion  of  a  Jewish  apocalypse.  It 
is  well  known  that  the  Logos  of  the  first  chapter 
of  St.  John's  Gospel  is  directly  derived  from  the 
thought  of  Philo,  while  St.  Luke  shows  acquaint- 
ance with,  and  utilizes  the  historic  knowledge  of, 
Josephus.  In  several  of  these  instances  there  is 
a  certain  amount  of  doubt  whether  the  document 
is  definitively  Jewish  or  Christian,  but  the  fact 
that  such  doubt  could  arise  in  the  minds  of  capable 
students  of  early  Christianity  is  sufficient  for  the 
point  I  am  here  making  of  the  substantial  agree- 
ment, if  not  identity,  of  the  two  creeds  in  most 
theological  fundamentals. 

The  same  doubt  exists  about  some  of  the  early 
101 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Christian  heresies,  as,  for  instance,  the  Ebionites. 
Montanism  is  declared  by  Renan  to  be  an  essentially 
Jewish  heresy,  while  the  relation  of  Millenarian- 
ism  to  the  Book  of  Daniel  is  obvious  on  the 
face  of  it.  No  wonder  that  as  late  as  380  the 
Christians  of  Antioch  went  to  synagogue  as  a 
matter  of  course,  and  St.  John  Chrysostom  up- 
braids his  hearers  for  doing  the  same. 

The  practical  identity  of  the  two  creeds  was 
so  striking,  especially  to  the  outer  world,  that 
the  Church  had  to  go  out  of  its  way  to  invent 
differences  in  practice.  The  earliest  of  these 
was  the  transference  of  the  Sabbath  to  the  Sun- 
day, which  to  this  day  troubles  the  conscience 
of  the  Seventh  Day  Baptists.  The  great  Coun- 
cil of  Nicaea  took  elaborate  steps  to  prev^ent 
Easter  from  falling  upon  the  same  day  as  Pass- 
over in  order  to  distinguish  the'  two.  As  we 
have  seen  earlier,  as  soon  as  it  obtained  the 
supremacy,  the  Church  put  a  stop  to  any  identi- 
fication of  the  two  creeds  by  barring  commen- 
sality  and  intermarriage  and  taking  steps  to  de- 
grade the  social  status  of  the  Jew.  The  very 
intensity  of  its  hatred  showed  the  nearness  of 
the  danger  (and  of  the  doctrines)  ;  it  was  a 
family  quarrel. 

102 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JEWS 

No  doubt  there  were  differences  of  belief  and 
practice,  as  well  as  the  identities  which  I  have 
thus  emphasized  (for  the  first  time,  so  far  as 
I  am  aware,  in  such  detail).  The  rejection  of 
the  Law  by  Pauline  Christianity  at  once  put  a 
barrier  between  the  two  offshoots  of  Hebraism. 
The  image  worship,  which  the  early  Church 
adopted  from  the  pagan  world,  was  especially 
obnoxious  to  the  Jewish  consciousness.  The 
combined  socialism  and  Orphic  mystery  of  the 
early  Christian  love-feasts  (Agapae)  is  a  new 
departure  which,  after  all,  scarcely  established 
Itself  even  in  the  Church;  the  "kiss  of  peace," 
its  sole  survival,  was  a  Jewish  practice;  above 
all,  the  doctrine  of  the  Man-God  (and  its  corol- 
lary, the  Virgin  birth)  was  a  distinct  contri- 
bution of  Hellenism,  and  was  utterly  alien  to 
Jewish  notions,  which  have  repudiated  them  con- 
sistently from  that  day  to  this.  For  this  repudia- 
tion of  the  crucial  distinction  between  Christian- 
ity and  Judaism  Jews  were  soon  excluded  from 
Christian  fellowship.  As  early  as  306  the 
laws  of  the  Church  debarred  the  faithful  from 
marrying  or  even  eating  with  Jews.  They  were 
soon  prevented  from  bearing  witness,  true  or 
false,  against  Christians,   and  by  538   they  were 

103 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

forbidden  to  exercise  any  authority  over  true 
believers,  whether  as  public  officials  or  as  private 
masters.  Considering  the  closeness  of  the  two 
religions,  both  in  creed  and  practice,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  understand  these  ecclesiastical  enact- 
ments as  precautions  against  confusion  between 
the  two  faiths  on  the  part  of  the  pagans.  What 
is  rather  difficult  to  understand  is  the  endorse- 
ment by  the  state  of  the  principle  that  all  mem- 
bers of  the  state  must  be  members  of  the  State- 
Church.  It  is  possible  that  the  spread  of  the 
Arlan  heresy  and  Its  results  may  have  predis- 
posed statesmen  towards  this  remarkable  policy, 
which  has  had  such  disastrous  results  not  alone 
for  Jews  but  for  all  citizens,  since  it  has  made 
uniformity  of  doctrine  a  test  of  state  service. 
They  may  have  observed  that,  in  cases  like 
Spain  and  Lombardy  where  the  rulers  were 
Arlans  and  the  subjects  Catholics,  the  State  fell 
into  anarchy  and  was,  in  Spain,  conquered  by 
the  unbelievers.  As  a  contrast  to  this  they  ob- 
served the  uniform  success  of  the  Franks,  who 
were  Catholics,  from  the  king  to  his  meanest 
subjects.  Once  adopted  as  a  state  policy,  all 
the  force  of  the  Church  was  naturally  devoted 
to  keeping  the  principle  intact,   which  made  the 

104 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JEWS 

Church   the   arbiter   and   ruling   principle   of   the 
State. 

In  this  connection  the  position  of  the  Jews 
in  the  mediaeval  Church-State  was  indeed  re- 
markable in  many  respects.  It  is  generally  re- 
garded nowadays,  both  by  Christians  and  Jews,^ 
as  the  typical  example  of  persecution  of  creed. 
In  reality  it  is  the  first  great  example  of  tolera- 
tion in  Church  policy  after  the  Catholic  idea  of 
repudiation  of  heresy  within  the  state  had  pre- 
vailed. Contrast  the  case  of  an  Albigeois  of 
Narbonne  with  a  Jew  of  the  same  city  at  the 
beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century.  The  for- 
mer, because  he  doubted  the  Virgin  birth  of 
Christ  or  held  divergent  views  as  to  the  Pro- 
cession of  the  Holy  Ghost,  would  be  condemned 
to  the  flames,  whereas  the  Narbonne  Jew  was 
allowed  to  live  on,  with  life  and  property  secure, 
so  far  as  the  Church  was  concerned,  though 
he  equally  repudiated  the  Virgin  birth  and  didn't 
even  profess  to  acknowledge  the  existence  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  The  object  of  the  Church  in 
making  this  contrast  was,  of  course,  not  due  to 
any  desire  to  encourage  free  thought.  The  Jews 
were  to  be  kept  alive  as  living  witnesses  to  the 

105 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Passion  and  proofs  of  Holy  Writ/  At  the  same 
time  they  were  to  be  prevented  from  enjoying 
power  or  wealth,  so  that  their  infidelity  would 
carry  with  it  its  obvious  punishment  as  an  example 
to  all  men. 

Now,  in  principle,  the  anti-Semites  of  to-day 
seek  to  revive  the  Jewish  disabilities  of  the 
mediaeval  Church-State,  because  most  of  them 
wish  to  revive  the  Church-State.  It  matters  not 
that  with  Mr.  Chamberlain  the  Church  which 
is  thus  to  be  thrust  into  power  again  is  the 
Lutheran  Protestant  with  the  vaguest  of  dog- 
mas, while  with  M.  Drumont  it  is  the  Cath- 
olic Church  with  all  its  dogmatisms  that  would 
regain  that  position.  They  can  scarcely  hope 
any  longer  to  restore  the  Church-State  of  the 
Middle  Ages  in  its  entirety  and  force  all  citi- 
zens to  be  of  one  creed,  but  they  do  desire  that 
their  own  theological  views,  as  embodied  in 
their  own  Church,  should  have  a  predominant 
influence  upon  legislation.  They  attack  the  Jews 
as  the  most  prominent  example  of  non-agree- 
ment with  the  Established  Church  (Lutheran  in 
Prussia,  Catholic  formerly  in  France).  But  Mr. 
Chamberlain  is  almost  equally  adverse  to   Cath- 

'  St.  Bernard;  see  below,  p.  128. 
106 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JEWS 

olics  as  to  Jews;  Drumont,  or,  at  any  rate,  his 
party,  was  aiming  probably  even  as  much  at 
Protestants  as  at  Jews. 

It  is  indeed  difficult  to  see  how  they  can  hope, 
in  any  way,  to  effect  their  object  of  excluding 
modern  Jews  from  the  modern  State.  They 
could  only  do  this  by  insisting  upon  a  cer- 
tain uniformity  of  belief  from  all  citizens;  and 
so  great  have  been  the  inroads  of  agnosticism 
and  modernism  that  any  principle  excluding  Jews 
would,  in  all  probability,  exclude  even  larger 
circles  of  Christians.  For  it  is  notorious  that 
just  in  those  points  in  which  Jews  theologically 
differ  from  their  Christian  fellow-citizens  the 
modern  world  is  at  last  coming  around  to  the 
Jewish  attitude.  The  older  view,  which  re- 
garded every  utterance  of  the  Old  Testament 
as  cryptically  pointing  toward  one  or  the  other 
of  the  utterances  or  exploits  of  Jesus,  is  en- 
tirely exploded.  The  notion  of  direct  prophecy 
by  texts  of  the  Old  Testament  of  the  coming 
and  detailed  acts  of  Jesus  is  equally  antiquated.^ 
A  celebrated  example  is  ^he  well-known  alleged 
prophecy   of   the   Virgin   birth    in    Isaiah    7,    14, 

^  See  Kuenen,    The  Prophets  and  Prophecies  of  Israel,  Lon- 
don, 1878. 

107 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

which,  as  Dr.  Skinner  remarks  in  his  com- 
ments on  the  passage,  in  the  Cambridge  Bible, 
is  now  given  up  in  favor  of  the  Jewish 
view.  Isaiah  53  is  no  longer  regarded  even 
by  Christian  theologians  as  a  direct  prophecy 
of  Jesus,  but  rather  of  the  nation  of  Israel  in 
personified  form.^  The  difficulties  of  Trini- 
tarianism  are  ever  on  the  increase,  and  there 
is  a  marked  apologetic  tone,  in  the  dyslogistic 
sense  of  that  word,  in  the  defenders  of  the 
Virgin  birth. ^  If  all  are  to  be  excluded  from 
the  full  privileges  of  citizenship  who  do  not  be- 
lieve in  the  Trinity  or  the  Virgin  birth,  Jews 
will   not   be   the   only  sufferers. 

Whatever  may  be  the  religious  future  of 
humanity  in  the  immediate  future,  Jews  are  in 
an  exceptionally  fortunate  position  to  meet  the 
inevitable  changes.  If  there  is  a  revival  of 
faith,  it  will  doubtless  affect  them  as  much  as 
others;  indeed  there  are  signs  that  the  world 
is  beginning  to  be  willing  to  listen  to  Jewish 
teachers    in    matters    of    religion.       One    might 

'  See  Robinson,  The  Religious  Ideas  of  the  Old  Testament, 
New  York,  1913,  p.  176. 

-See  J.  Orr,  The  Virgin  Birth  of  Christ,  New  York,  1907, 
to  which  I  contributed  a  paper  (sadly  mutilated  in  publication) 
on  the  Jewish  aspect  of  the  subject. 

108 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JEWS 

even  predict  that  a  revival  of  Messianism  among 
Jews  would  meet  with  a  wide  sympathy  among 
Christians.  Again,  if  science  makes  even  wider 
conquests  in  the  religious  sphere  than  it  has 
done  hitherto,  it  by  no  means  follows  that 
Judaism  may  not  survive  the  scientific  triumph. 
Its  two  fundamental  doctrines,  the  Unity  of 
God  and  the  Messianic  Hope,  could  easily  be 
transvaluated  into  scientific  terms,  as  James 
Darmesteter  once  pointed  out.  Science  is,  with 
each  advancing  stage  of  its  progress,  insisting 
upon  the  unity  of  all  forms  of  energy,  while 
scientific  philanthropy  is  looking  forward  to  an 
era  when  poverty  will  be  no  more,^  and  when 
peace  will  be  assured  by  the  impossibility  of 
gaining  anything  by  war,"  or,  in  other  words, 
when  the  two  requirements  of  the  Messianic  Age 
will  be  fulfilled.  Even  if  the  depressing  prophecy 
of  Guyau  as  to  the  "non-religion"  of  the  future 
be  fulfilled,  Jews,  to  say  the  least,  can  be  as  non- 
religious  as  others,  and  cadit  quastio  judaica. 
Already  they  have  shown,  in  the  Ethical  Culture 
movement,  that  they  are  prepared  for  such  a 
deplorable  consummation  of  their  great   history. 

'See  J.  H.  Hollander,  The  Abolition  of  Poverty,  1914. 
^  Norman  Angell. 

100 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

It  is  indeed  remarkable  that  just  when  Jews  are  at 
last  free  to  practise  and,  if  they  desire  it,  to  propa- 
gate their  faith,  they  should  find  it  undermined 
from  without  by  the  Higher  Criticism  of  Chris- 
tians and  within  by  the  Ethical  Culture  of  Jews. 

Whatever  may  be  the  future  of  what  may  be 
termed  theological  religion,  there  is  little  doubt 
that  it  will  take  up  less  and  less  space  in  men's 
thoughts  compared  with  what  it  did  in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  when  everything  was  tinged  with 
theological  speculation.  The  trend  of  the  age 
is  away  from  dogmatic  belief.  Amiel  was  right 
in  saying  that  the  days  of  the  over-sure  in  things 
spiritual  was  over.  When  so  many  men  of 
distinction  and  brilliant  parts  doubt  the  very 
existence  of  personal  communion  between  man 
and  the  Supreme  Being  of  the  universe,  it 
would  be  nugatory  to  lay  stress  upon  unessen- 
tial differences  about  the  metaphysical  consti- 
tution of  that  Supreme  Being.  This  idea  gives 
an  air  of  unreality  to  theological  speculation  of 
all  kinds,  which  accounts  for  the  apologetic  tone 
now  predominant  in  works  on  theology  of  all 
schools.  And  if  theology  be  discredited,  it  is 
difficult  to  s;e  how  Jews  can  suffer  civic  discrim- 
ination on  any  theological  grounds. 

110 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JEWS 

Outside  theology,  the  elements  of  modern 
civilization  are  open  equally  to  Jew  as  to  Chris- 
tian, and  one  of  the  most  marked  characteris- 
tics of  the  past  century  has  been  the  eagerness 
with  which  they  have  entered  into  possession 
of  them.  In  literature,  in  art,  in  science,  and 
in  practical  life,  the  Jew  has  taken  his  full  share 
in  modern  culture,  and  compared  with  these 
the  theological  side  of  men's  lives  is  rapidly 
shrinking.  Thus,  in  the  theological  sphere, 
the  points  of  conflict  between  Jew  and  Gentile 
have  become  less  and  less;  the  points  of 
communion  are,  for  reasons  just  indicated,  in- 
creasing as  the  ages  go  past;  and  at  the  same 
time,  outside  theology,  there  is  an  ever-increasing 
sphere  of  spiritual  activity  in  which  Jews  can 
and  do  join  with  equal  right  as  any  of  their 
fellow-citizens. 

I  am  aware  that  the  higher  anti-Semites,  like 
Mr.  Chamberlain,  will  insist  that  the  theological 
differences  that  still  remain  are  of  the  highest 
importance  in  questions  of  idealism  in  human 
intercourse.  The  devil  can  quote  Browning  for 
his  purpose: 

The  little  more  and  how  much  it  is; 
The  little  less  and  how  far  away! 
Ill 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

And  with  regard  to  all  social  matters  this  canon 
is  especially  applicable.  The  slightest  difference 
of  accent  or  of  manner  may  be  repellant  in 
social  intercourse  and  may  make  one  select  or 
reject  this  one  or  that  as  one's  chosen  com- 
rade. But  the  point  I  am  making  now  is  that 
it  is  practically  impossible  that,  in  a  modern 
state,  theological  differences,  such  as  divide  Jews 
from  Gentiles,  can  any  longer  be  made  the  basis 
of  political  disqualifications.  And  provided  that 
political  equality  is  secured  to  the  Jews,  they  can 
safely  let  social  equality  work  itself  out  in  due 
process  of  time  by  the  natural  links  of  con- 
tiguity and  common  work  for  national  needs. 

Meanwhile  our  examination  of  the  Church — 
that  great  institution  which  has  caused,  in  the 
past,  the  discrimination  against  Jews  in  Euro- 
pean nations  that  has  had  such  disastrous  re- 
sults— has  shown  that,  in  essentials,  Church  doc- 
trine and  practice  are  largely  derived  from  and 
are  identical  with  those  of  the  Synagogue.  In 
the  preceding  chapter  we  have  seen  that  the  funda- 
mentals of  European  civilization  are  identical 
for  Jew  and  Gentile;  in  the  present  one  it  has 
been  shown  that  much  of  the  details  of  that 
civilization    are    likewise    identical    in    the    two 

112 


THE    CHURCH    AND    THE    JEWS 

spiritual  spheres.  Even  the  most  violent  church- 
man must  recognize  the  substantial  identity  of 
the  fundamental  ideals  of  Church  and  Synagogue. 
It  will  be  shown  in  succeeding  chapters  that 
much  of  the  superstructure  raised  on  these  founda- 
tions was  also  the  common  work  of  Jew  and 
Gentile. 


113 


CHAPTER    III 

Jews  Become  Europeans 

We  have  seen  how,  by  adoption  of  the  main 
Jewish  Ideals  by  Christianity,  the  fundamental 
principles  upon  which  both  Jews  and  Christians 
were  to  guide  their  lives  for  nearly  two  thou- 
sand years  became  practically  identical,  though 
with  divergencies  in  details  the  Importance  of 
which  both  sides  tended  to  exaggerate.  We 
have  now  to  study  the  Jewish  superstructure 
raised  upon  these  principles  on  European  soil 
during  the  Middle  Ages,  so  as  to  ascertain  how 
far  the  Jewish  element  In  Europe  became  vitally 
Incorporated  with  the  rest  In  the  European 
State  system.  There  is  much  current  mis- 
understanding on  this  point  both  among  Jews 
and  others.  The  mediaeval  Jews  are  regarded  as 
an  entirely  alien  element  in  Europe — of  alien 
race  (which  Is  mainly  true),  of  alien  tongue 
(which  is  not  true;  they  were  merely  bilingual), 
entirely   outside   the   State   organizations    (which 

114 


JEWS    BECOME    EUROPEANS 

is  only  partly  true),  and  untouched  by  the 
general  European  stream  of  culture.  This  last 
is  so  far  from  being  true  that  they  both  shared 
in  it  and  actually  contributed  to  it  largely,  con- 
sidering their  numbers.  It  is  true  that  Jews 
held  a  special  status  in  mediaeval  Christendom 
and  Islam,  but  it  is  forgotten  how  many  dif- 
ferent sections  of  society  had  an  equally  special 
status.  To  understand  the  position  of  the  Jews 
in  Europe,  both  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  in  con- 
temporary Eastern  Europe,  one  must  get  a 
clear  idea  of  this  status  of  the  Jews  about  which 
the  learned  seem  to  be  still  at  sea. 

The  most  usual  view,  among  legal  historians 
like  Scherer,^  or  Maitland  and  Pollock,^  is  that 
the  Jews  were  regarded  as  aliens  in  the  different 
countries  in  which  they  lived;  and  that  this  ex- 
plains their  peculiar  disabilities,  for  in  the  Middle 
Ages  aliens  had  no  rights.^  But  against  this  lies 
the  patent  fact  that  the  children  of  aliens  have 
all  the  rights  of  the  land  of  their  birth,  so  that 
alienage     is    not    a    heritable    quality,     whereas 

^  Die  Verhaeltnisse  der  Juden  in  den  deutsch-oesterreichischen 
Laendern,  Leipzig,  1901. 

^History  of  English  Law,  vol.  i,  p.  451-8. 

^  Heffter,    Voelkerrecht,   8th   edition,   p.    108 ;    quoting  Wilda, 
Strafrecht  der  Germanen,  672. 

115 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Judaism  in  mediaeval  times  obviously  was.  It 
would  be  absurd,  for  example,  to  call  Moses  of 
Oxford,  who  sold  the  site  of  Merton  College 
to  Walter  de  Merton,  an  alien,  since  we  could 
trace  his  ancestry  in  England  for  at  least  six 
generations  back.  Nor  were  they  without  rights, 
as  is  contended  in  an  ingenious  essay  by  Mr. 
Frank  I.  Sc-hechter,^  since  they  had  rights  espe- 
cially conferred  upon  them  by  charters  which  we 
can  trace  from  the  time  of  Henry  I  onward.  I 
am  afraid  I  must  equally  withdraw  my  own  ex- 
planation of  the  mediaeval  Jewish  status,  which  I 
put  forward  in  my  Jeivs  of  Angevin  Eng- 
land, 1893.  I  there  traced  the  civil  disabilities 
of  the  mediceval  Jew  to  his  enforced  position  as 
usurer,  whose  estate  always  escheated  to  the  king, 
whether  he  was  Jew  or  Gentile.  Since  the  Jew 
could  only  be  a  usurer,  as  we  shall  see,  his  prop- 
erty would  be,  in  this  view,  constructively  the 
king's,  even  while  he  w^as  living.  Against  this 
view  Pollock  and  Maitland^  rightly  urge  that 
there  was  an  essential  difference  between  Jewish 
and  Christian  usury,  inasmuch  as  the  Jew  could 

^  "The    Rightlessness    of    Mediaeval    English    Jewrj-,"    Jeivish 
Quarterly  Rei'ie^,  New  Series,  vol.  iv,  pp.  121-151. 
^  Loc.  cit.,  i,  471. 

116 


JEWS    BECOME    EUROPEANS 

sue  for  his  usurious  debts  in  the  king's  courts,  and 
the  Christian  could  not. 

Nor  can  one  subscribe  to  Prof.  Jenks'  view 
that  the  special  relation  of  Jew  to  king  or  em- 
peror was  simply  due  to  the  fact  that  the  monarch 
was  the  natural  protector  of  all  classes  of  society 
who  could  find  none  other.  As  administrator  of 
the  land  regarded  as  the  royal  domain,  he  had 
jurisdiction  over  widows,  orphans,  aliens,  Jews, 
lunatics,  and  later  the  printing  press. ^  Feudal 
law  was,  at  any  rate  in  the  beginning,  the  law  of 
the  fiefs,  and  those  who  did  not  belong  to  the 
fiefs  had  to  have  their  own  law  or  that  of  the 
king.  Hence  the  Canon  law  for  priests,  and  the 
Merchant  law  for  merchants ; "  and  hence  it  would 
seem  the  law  of  the  Jewish  Exchequer  for  Jews, 
though  Prof.  Jenks  does  not  say  so.  But  here 
again  the  existence  of  charters  granted  by  kings 
and  emperors  to  Jews  is  sufficient  to  show  that 
the  sp.ecial  relations  between  them  were  not  due 
to  the  casualties  of  the  common  law  but  to  a 
quasi-contractual  compact  between  them,  for 
which,  in  many  cases,  we  can  find  Jews  paying 
due  consideration. 

*  Jenks,  loc.  cit.,  p.  91. 
'  Op.  cit.,  p.  26. 

117 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

The  key  to  the  situation  lies  in  the  political 
relations  of  Church  and  State  from  the  time  of 
Constantine  onward.  The  Church  had  from  the 
beginning,  as  we  have  seen,  gone  out  of  its  way 
to  emphasize  the  differences  between  the  two 
creeds  and  to  invent  differences  of  practice  (Sun- 
day against  Sabbath;  Easter  instead  of  Passover; 
Gospel  lections  instead  of  Haftarot,  etc.).  As 
soon  as  it  approached  State  recognition,  it  pro- 
ceeded further  on  the  way  to  segregation  of  Jew 
and  Christian.  Thus  the  Council  of  Elvira,  in 
306,  forbade  Christians  to  marry  Jews  or  even  to 
eat  with  them;  and  the  former  barrier  was  em- 
phasized in  the  Theodosian  code,  in  339,  on 
penalty  of  death,  it  being  declared  a  little  later, 
in  388,  that  such  intermarriage  was  equivalent  to 
adultery.  In  the  former  year,  339,  Jews  were 
forbidden  to  purchase  Christian  slaves,  and  con- 
version from  Christianity  to  Judaism  was  early 
forbidden  (357)  on  pain  of  loss  of  property. 
Jews  were,  a  little  later,  excluded  from  all  public 
offices  and  dignities  (418),  and  prevented  from 
building  new  synagogues  (423).  Thus  there  is 
a  distinct  and  deliberate  attempt  on  the  part  of 
the  Church,  as  soon  as  it  got  into  power,  to  segre- 
gate and  degrade  Jews. 

118 


JEWS    BECOME    EUROPEy\NS 

But  the  new  Christian  emperors  were  em- 
perors as  well  as  Christians,  and  felt  obliged  to 
follow  the  tradition  of  Roman  law  about  the 
Jews,  as  well  as  their  new  ecclesiastical  masters. 
Now,  in  the  law  of  Imperial  Rome,  Judaism 
was  a  "religlo  licita."  And  hence  we  find  the 
codes  forbidding  disturbance  of  Jewish  religious 
assemblies  (393),  and  permitting  the  Jews  to 
excommunicate  "false  brothers"  (392),  and  to 
regulate  their  own  congregations  (398).  They 
were  even  exempted  from  being  called  to  the 
courts  or  for  any  public  service  on  sabbaths  and 
festivals  (409). 

This  anomalous  position  represented  the  am- 
biguous attitude  of  the  Christian  empire  towards 
them.  Jews  could  not  be  regarded  as  heathens, 
since  they  held  a  part  of  the  truth,  indeed  that 
part  of  the  truth  which  "proved"  Christianity. 
Therefore  their  continued  existence  was  desira- 
ble as  a  proof  of  the  true  faith.  On  the  other 
hand,  by  their  obstinate  refusal  to  accept  the 
full  truth,  they  kept  themselves  outside  the  pale 
and  were  thus  infidels,  though  not  heretics,  since 
they  had  never  accepted  Christianity  and  there- 
fore had  not  "chosen"  their  own  creed,  which 
had   come  to  them   by  birth.      Now   it  was   the 

119 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

policy  of  the  Catholic  Church  to  contend  that 
heretics  and  infidels  were  "perpetui  inlmici."  ^ 
The  mediaeval  status  of  the  Jew  was  thus  a 
compromise  between  the  "religio  licita"  of  the 
Roman  empire  and  the  "perpetui  inimici"  of  the 
Catholic  Church. 

But  what  caused  the  rulers  of  the  State  to 
adopt  this  stringent  unity  of  faith  among  its 
subjects  demanded  by  the  Catholic  Church? 
That  is  really  the  puzzle  of  mediaeval  history, 
not  alone  as  regards  Jews  but  with  regard  to 
all  heretics.  How  was  it  to  the  interest  of  the 
ruling  classes  of  the  State  that  all  their  sub- 
jects should  profess  the  same  beliefs  as  to  the 
unseen  world?  One  can  understand  the  Church 
laying  stress  upon  this,  since  it  gave  her  the  con- 
trol over  men's  minds  and  fates.  But  why 
should  Theodoslus,  or  Honorius,  or  Sisebut,  or 
Erwig  demand  uniformity  of  belief  among  their 
subjects  and  consequently  load  their  Jews  with 
disabilities?  Partly,  of  course,  because  they  were 
believing    and    even    at    times    fanatical    church- 

^  In  the  well-known  Calvin's  (reallj-  Colvill)  case,  by  which  it 
was  decided  that  Scotchmen,  born  after  the  Union  of  1603,  were 
not  aliens  to  English  law  (7  Coke's  Reports,  p.  33*).  Coke  quotes 
the  maxim  "All  infidels  are,  in  law,  perpetui  inimici."  He  also 
refers  to  Y.B.  12  H.  VIII,  f.  4. 

120 


JEWS    BECOME    EUROPEANS 

men,  but  also,  It  is  probable,  because  they  had 
observed  the  bad  results  of  diversity  of  creed 
even  in  State  affairs.  The  early  emperors  had 
doubtless  noticed  how  the  conflict  of  pagans 
and  Christians  had  weakened  the  State.  The 
Catholic  Visigoth  kings,  who  begin  the  long  line 
of  persecuting  monarchs,  had  observed  how  the 
existence  of  Arian  monarchs,  with  Catholic  sub- 
jects, had  weakened  and  destroyed  the  Lom- 
bards and  presented  a  perpetual  source  of  weak- 
ness in  Visigothic  Spain.  Whatever  be  the 
cause,  from  the  seventh  century  onwards,  Jews 
held  the  anomalous  position  of  being  regarded 
as  perpetual  enemies,  from  the  Church  point 
of  view,  yet  holding  a  permitted  religion,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  State. 

The  same  attitude  was  adopted  by  Islam. 
Muhammed  himself  had  coquetted  with  the  Jews 
in  the  hope  that  they  would  adopt  him  as  their 
Messiah.  But,  on  being  repulsed,  he  made  them 
the  first  "Dhimmis,"  or  subject  yet  protected 
races.  Yet  Islam  was  in  much  the  same  posi- 
tion toward  Judaism  as  Christianity  itself,  inas- 
much as  it  recognized  its  validity  so  far  as  it 
went.  When  the  Arabs  spread  into  neighboring 
lands  possessing  inhabitants   with   diverse   creeds, 

]21 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

the  principle  was  laid  down  that  the  "Ahl 
al-Kitab,"  or  peoples  possessing  Scriptures,  should 
be  tolerated  in  Islamic  lands,  though  subject  to 
certain  legal  and  social  disqualifications.  These 
applied  to  Christians  and  Sabaeans,  as  well  as 
to  Jews;  but  as  time  went  on  the  last-mentioned 
became  almost  the  sole  examples  of  "the  people 
of  the  book."  Of  course,  Jews  could  not  in- 
termarry with  true  believers,  or  hold  them  as 
slaves,  and  they  had  to  wear  a  distinguishing 
mark  or  badge  known  as  Shakalah,  a  provision 
which  was  afterwards  adopted  by  Innocent  III 
at  the  Lateran  Council  of  12 15. 

Thus  both  in  Church  and  Mosque  the  Jews 
were  tolerated  persons,  though  laboring  under 
disabilities,  and  this  gave  them  a  special  func- 
tion to  perform  as  intermediaries  between  the 
two  faiths  in  the  early  Middle  Ages.  They 
could  travel  both  in  Christian  and  Muslim  lands 
without  interference  on  account  of  their  creed, 
while  in  both  spheres  they  would  find  brethren 
in  faith  with  whom  they  could  communicate  in 
Hebrew  and  who  yet  spoke  the  v-ernacular.  By 
the  middle  of  the  ninth  century  we  find  an  Ara- 
bic geographer,  Ibn  Khordadhbeh,  in  his  Book 
of     Routes,     referring     to     Jewish     merchants, 

122 


JEWS    BECOME    EUROPEANS 

called  by  him  Radanites,  as  bringing  goods  and 
slaves  from  Europe  to  the  Far  East  and  back. 
When  sending  an  embassy  to  Harun  al-Rashid* 
Charlemagne  sent  a  Jew  named  Isaac  to  ac- 
company the  embassy,  probably  as  interpreter. 
So  well  understood  was  this  role  of  commercial 
intermediary  by  the  Jew  that  in  the  early  Ger- 
man capitularies  the  regular  formula  was  "Jews 
and  other  merchants."  We  shall  see  later  on 
how  this  commercial  intermediacy  of  the  Jews 
influenced  the  slave,  drug,  and  spice  trades,  which 
were  the  chief  things  interchanged  between  East 
and  West  in  the  early  Middle  Ages  up  to  the 
Crusades. 

The  Crusades  brought  about  a  new  turn  in 
the  condition  of  the  European  Jews  in  two  ways. 
Being  wars  of  religion,  they  aroused  the  re- 
ligious passions  of  Europe  to  the  highest  pitch, 
and  brought  out  popular  antipathy  to  Jews,  who 
Vvere  equally  enemies  of  Christ  with  the  Saracens. 
But,  besides  this,  the  need  of  ready  cash  for  the 
Crusaders  themselves  emphasized  the  position  of 
the  Jews  in  the  different  countries  as  indirect  tax- 
gatherers  of  the  king.     Their  use   for  this  pur- 


^  For  details,  see  chapter  vi. 

123 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

pose  had  been  seen  by  those  "superb  political 
animals,"    as   Prof.   Jenks   calls   the   Normans/ 

William  the  Conqueror  brought  over  Jews 
from  Rouen  to  E'jigland  soon  after  the  Con- 
quest, and  we  find  them  equally  prominent  in 
the  Two  Sicilies  in  the  twelfth  century.  The 
Church  policy  towards  "usury,"  as  is  well  known, 
had  thrown  into  Jewish  hands  all  capitalism, 
and  the  Norman  kings  had  the  sense  to  see  the 
use  that  could  be  made  of  the  Jewish  capitalists, 
as  indirect  tax-gatherers,  to  increase  the  royal 
power. 

The  Jews  were  thus  utilized  to  break  up  the 
Clan-State  of  feudalism,  by  the  Norman  and 
other  kings,  when  the  strict  tenure  by  military 
service  began  to  be  commuted  in  the  form  of 
money  payment  by  scutages  and  the  like.  This 
commutation  could  only  be  made  in  ready  cash, 
of  which  the  Jews  were  the  only  persons  who 
could  supply  them  to  the  chance  comer.  It  is 
clear,  from  Magna  Charta  and  elsewhere,  that 
the  kings,  by  this  means,  got  a  hold  on  the 
baronage.      The    Jews,    not    being    able    to    bear 

'  I  desire  to  express  m}'  indebtedness  to  Prof.  E.  Jenks  for  the 
insight  given  into  mediaeval  conditions  by  his  Laiv  and  Politics 
in  the  Middle  Ages. 

124 


JEWS    BECOME    EUROPEANS 

arms — another  survival  of  their  status  in  the 
pagan  empire — could  not  hold  fiefs,  and  so  had 
to  confine  their  activities  to  the  towns,  where 
they  often  acted  as  intermediaries  between  the 
kings  and  the  municipalities  in  the  triangular 
quarrels  among  kings,   nobles,    and   townfolk. 

Something  similar  had  occurred  earlier  in  the 
Carolingian  empire  where  the  Jews  had  come 
under  the  special  protection  of  the  emperors,  as 
indeed  did  all  merchants.  In  the  early  Middle 
Ages  it  was  inconceivable  that  anybody  should 
be  in  the  country  without  being  somebody's 
"man."  Hence  in  the  Holy  Roman  empire  Jews 
were  regarded  as  "servi  camerae,"  or,  in  other 
words,  they  were  only  subject  to  the  emperor's 
chancery  in  matters  of  jurisdiction,  and  that  meant 
ultimately  of  taxation. 

But  it  is  entirely  misleading  to  regard  this 
special  and  direct  relation  to  the  king  and  the 
emperor  as  anything  particularly  degrading  to 
the  mediaeval  Jew.  The  barons  were  equally  the 
king's  "men,"  as  indeed  their  name  directly  im- 
plies. The  Jews  had,  like  the  barons,  the  right 
of  free  movement  through  the  land,  which  at 
once  differentiated  them  from  the  serfs  or 
"adscripti   glebse."      This   made   them   practically 

125 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

free  men,  so  far  as  any  person  could  be  free 
in  the  hierarchical  systems  of  feudalism/  Even 
the  principle  that  the  property  of  the  Jew  ulti- 
mately belonged  to  the  king  or  the  emperor  was 
no  more  than  an  extension  of  the  principle  of 
"eminent  domain,"  which  applied  equally  to 
other  sections  of  the  nation."  When  we  read 
of  the  many  exactions  extorted  from  the  Jews, 
it  seems  at  first  sight  as  if  they  were  excep- 
tionally treated  in  this  regard,  but,  to  take  the 
case  of  England  as  an  example,  one  finds  In 
Madox's  History  of  the  Exchequer  exactly  the 
same  class  and  amount  of  reliefs,  aids,  amercia- 
ments, fines,  and  so  on,  extorted  alike  from  Jew 
and  Christian. 

That  the  Jew  held  no  such  degraded  position 
in  the  early  Middle  Ages  as  is  usually  repre- 
sented is  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  had  his  own 
law  to  deal  with  cases  in  which  Jews  only  were 
concerned.      We    find   this    in    Spain    and    Sicily, 

^  The  Jews  recognized  this  themselves  at  the  time.  See  Tosa- 
fot,  Baba  Kamma,  58a:  "The  Jews  may  stay  wherever  they  wish, 
just  like  the  knights." 

'See  Maitland's  translation  of  Giercke,  Political  Theories 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  79,  and  notes  270,  271,  on  the  maxim 
"Omnia  principis  esse  inteliiguntur,"  and  on  the  doctrine  of 
"dominium  soninens." 

126 


JEWS    BECOME    EUROPEANS 

as  well  as  in  England.  There  was  nothing  in- 
congruous to  mediaeval  ideas  in  this.  Everyone 
belonged  to  a  certain  group,  community  or  "uni- 
versitas"  (corporation  or  fellowship)  which  was 
collectively  responsible  for  him,  and  this  group 
gave  him  his  status.  Each  status  had  its  own 
set  of  laws.  There  were  the  Law  Merchant, 
the  Canon  Law,  the  Laws  of  the  Forest  and  of 
the  Staple,  Crowner's  Quest  Law,  besides  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Manor  and  Municipal  Courts. 
Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  instance  is  given 
by  the  court  attached  to  the  "universitas"  or  com- 
munity of  foreign  students  at  Paris,  Bologna, 
or  Oxford,  who  had  thus,  as  it  were,  exterri- 
toriality; there  is  still  a  survival  of  this  in  the 
L'niversity  Courts  of  to-day  at  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge. There  was,  therefore,  nothing  abnormal 
in  the  Assize  of  Jewry  or  the  Jewish  Exchequer, 
except  as  implying  a  special  status  for  the 
mediaeval  Jew,  which  was  no  more  degrading  or 
exceptional  than  that  of  the  merchant,  the  cleric, 
the  student,  or  the  forester. 

But  this  special  status  of  the  Jew  was  com- 
mon throughout  Western  Europe  owing,  in  the 
first  instance,  to  the  common  influence  of  the 
Church,    and   in   the   second    to   the    example   of 

127 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

the  Norman  chanceries.  The  most  remarkable 
thing  about  mediaeval  Europe  is  the  conformity 
of  attitude  shown  by  the  different  nations  which 
helped  to  produce  that  common  feeling  which  we 
nowadays  call,  indifferently,  Christianity  or  civili- 
zation. The  chief  element  in  this  was,  of  course, 
the  Church;  but  beside  it  was  that  tendency  which 
we  know  as  chivalry,  based  on  feudalism  and 
finding  its  military  representative  in  the  mounted 
knight.  No  more  striking  example  of  the  unity 
of  feeling,  produced  by  these  elements,  can  be 
given  than  the  spread  of  the  Arthurian  and  Car- 
lovingian  romances,  from  Iceland  to  Portugal, 
from  England  to  Sicily. 

Now  among  these  unifying  elements,  which 
help  to  give  the  common  ground  of  civilization 
for  all  Europe,  west  of  the  Oder,  must  be  in- 
cluded the  existence  of  Jews,  with  their  special 
yet  common  status,  in  all  these  countries.  They 
may  have  been  small  in  numbers,  but  they  loomed 
large  in  the  popular  imagination  owing  to  the 
policy  of  the  Church,  expressed  in  St.  Bernard's 
words:  "They  are  living  symbols  for  us,  rep- 
resenting the  Lord's  Passion.  For  this  are  they 
dispersed  to  all  lands,  so  that,  while  they  pay  the 
just  penalty  of  so  great   a   crime,   they  may  be 

128 


JEWS    BECOME    EUROPEANS 

witnesses  for  our  redemption."  ^  In  other  words, 
the  Church  regarded  the  Jews  as  ecclesiastical 
helots.  Jews  were  to  be  kept  alive  as  living 
proofs  of  the  Passion,  but  at  the  same  time  they 
were  to  be  degraded  in  every  possible  way  in 
order  to  show  the  ill-effects  of  denying  the 
Passion. 

How  late  this  attitude  of  the  Church  kept  on 
and  how  deeply  it  influenced  men's  minds  may  be 
illustrated  by  a  summary  of  the  argument  given 
by  J.  J.  Beck,"  who  discusses  whether  Jews  ought 
to  be  suffered  in  a  Christian  republic  and  on  what 
conditions.  The  reasons  he  gives  for  tolerat- 
ing them  is  because  God  has  done  so  up  to  the 
present,  because  their  dispersion  was  prophesied, 
and  because  toleration  is  the  right  of  every  man, 
and  they  are  even  men  like  Christians.  Be- 
sides this,  they  prove  the  truth  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  God's  providence  has  preserved  them ; 
while  much  inconvenience  may  result  from  ex- 
pelling them,  as  is  shown  by  Spain;  besides 
which  it  is  easy  to  check  their  wickedness  and 
usury,  and  one  ought  to  love  one's  enemies,  and 

^  Bouquet,  Recueil,  xv,  606. 

*  See  his  elaborate  treatise,  Von  Recht  der  Juden,  Niiren- 
berg,  1741. 

129 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

we  can  check  their  blasphemies.  But  they  ought 
not  to  injure  Christians  or  disturb  them  at  their 
dev^otions;  should  wear  special  clothing  and  not 
build  new  synagogues  or  convert  any  Christians, 
or  prevent  any  of  their  brethren  from  becoming 
Christians ;  they  should  not  receive  converts  or 
speak  disrespectfully  of  the  religion  of  Christians 
or  insult  their  Lord  and  Savior. 

But  though  there  was  something  really  devil- 
ish in  the  Church's  deliberate  scheme  to  keep 
the  Jews  ever  before  the  eyes  of  Christendom 
and  yet  degrade  them  by  all  the  disabilities  they 
could  induce  the  secular  powers  to  impose,  it 
would  be  unjust  to  regard  this  attitude  as  a 
special  instance  of  the  Church's  intolerance  and 
persecuting  tendency.  So  far  from  this  being 
the  case,  the  Church's  attitude  toward  and 
treatment  of  the  Jews  was,  in  a  measure,  a  re- 
markable example  of  toleration.  If  an  ordi- 
nary Frenchman,  or  Spaniard,  dared  to  express 
doubts  as  to  the  Virgin  birth,  or  as  to  the 
Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  he  was  liable  to 
death  by  burning  or  torture;  yet,  by  his  side 
might  stand  a  Jew  who  resolutely  and  abso- 
lutely denied  both  dogmas  without  suffering 
directly     any     corporal     pains     for    the     heinous 

130 


JEWS    BECOME    EUROPEANS 

offence.  The  existence  of  these  recognized  de- 
niers  of  the  fundamentals  of  the  Faith  must  have 
kept  ahve,  in  the  minds  of  all  men,  the  possibili- 
ties of  doubt.  The  very  existence  of  the  Jew 
was,  in  a  measure,  an  incitement  to  freedom  of 
thought,  though  in  Church  policy  he  was  being 
preserved  in  the  midst  of  Christendom  for  quite 
the  opposite  effect. 

Yet,  while  the  Jews  thus  contributed,  in  their 
way,  toward  the  growth  of  that  common  feeling, 
which  we  nowadays  know  as  European  civiliza- 
tion, they  helped  also  toward  the  growth  of  that 
feeling  of  nationalism  which  ultimately  broke  up 
the  mediaeval  community  of  feeling  and  caused 
the  Holy  Roman  empire  to  become  a  mere 
shadow.  For,  by  their  direct  relations  to  the 
kings,  they  helped  toward  that  consolidation  of 
royal  power  and  centralization  of  all  justice, 
which  was  the  necessary  prelude  to  the  making  of 
the  State,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word.  In 
all  the  chief  towns  the  Jewries  formed  an  ele- 
ment which  enabled  the  kings  and  emperors  to 
exercise  a  leverage  on  the  municipalities,  while, 
by  their  position  as  universal  heirs  to  the  estate 
of  each  Jew,  they  were  enabled  to  get  control  of 
most  of  the  nobles.     This  activity  of  the  Jews, 

131 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

in  helping  to  crystallize  the  different  nations 
around  their  kings,  began  with  the  Crusades, 
which  tended  to  reduce  all  men  toward  the  same 
taxable  level.  But  it  did  not  last  very  long, 
owing  to  the  expensive  character  of  this  method 
of  taxation  which  led,  sooner  or  later,  to  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Jews,  their  place  in  this  regard 
being  taken  by  Italian  merchants.  By  the  time 
of  the  Black  Death  (1349),  this  function  of  the 
Jew,  in  helping  to  create  the  separate  nationalities 
of  Europe,  by  contributing  to  the  king's  power, 
had  almost  died  away. 

The  Jews  could  not  have  had  these  effects, 
either  in  unifying  Christendom  or  nationalizing 
the  West  European  nations,  if  they  had  been  en- 
tirely outside  the  national  life,  as  is  usually  repre- 
sented. So  far  from  this  being  the  case,  they 
were,  after  the  Crusades,  throughout  Europe  a 
distinct  organ  of  the  State.  Their  usury  was  used 
by  the  kings  as  part  of  the  national  exchequer  in 
England,  France,  Spain,  Italy,  and  Germany,  and 
thus  the  king  became  a  "sleeping"  partner  In  all 
their  transactions;  so  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that.  In  every  case,  he  was  the  arch-usurer  of  his 
kingdom. 

That  otherwise  the  Jews  formed  part  of  the 
132 


JEWS    BECOME    EUROPEANS 

national  life  is  shown  by  their  complete  adop- 
tion of  the  vernacular  wherever  they  dwelt/ 
By  a  curious  coincidence  some  of  the  earliest 
examples  of  French  exist  in  the  French  glosses 
transliterated  into  Hebrew,  to  be  found  in  the 
commentaries  of  Rashi  (died  1104)  and  his 
school,  the  Tosafists.  If  the  English  Jews  also 
spoke  French,  that  was  because  they  really  be- 
longed to  the  upper  classes  of  England,  who 
did  the  same  up  to  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  Perhaps  the  most  touching  examples 
of  this  full  adoption  of  the  national  languages 
is  shown  by  the  history  of  Yiddish.  When  the 
German  Jews  were  expelled  from  the  south 
German  towns  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries,  they  carried  with  them  into  Poland 
the  dialect  used  in  the  south  German  districts, 
and  retain  this  language  up  to  the  present  day. 
So,  too,  when  the  Spanish  Jews  had  to  leave 
Spain,  they  carried  with  them  their  Spanish 
language,   which  is  used  by  them  in  the  Levant 

^  Even  in  clothing  there  was  no  distinction  in  the  early  Middle 
Ages,  or  otherwise  there  would  have  been  no  necessity  for  the 
badge.  In  later  times  only  Jews  became  conspicuous  by  their 
dress,  owing  to  the  fact  that  they  clung  to  the  fashions  of  earlier 
days. 

133 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

under  the  title  of  Ladino  up  to  the  present  day.^ 
Similarly  the  Russian  Jews,  when  settling  in 
America,  preserved  their  identity  as  inhabitants 
of  different  Russian  towns  like  Grodno,  Wilna, 
and  the  like.  It  is  true  that,  in  addition  to  these 
tongues,  many  or  even  most  Jews  read  and, 
possibly  in  some  cases,  speak  Hebrew,  owing  to 
the  excellent  system  of  education  which  the  needs 
of  their  religion  caused  them  to  adopt.  But,  from 
a  linguistic  point  of  view,  they  formed  part  of 
the  nations  among  whom  they  dwelt,  as  thor- 
oughly and  consistently  as  at  the  present  day. 
The  separation  in  language  and  deliberate  segre- 
gation in  Jewish  quarters  only  came  after  the 
Black  Death,  with  the  innumerable  expulsions 
which  brought  German-speaking  Jews  into  Poland, 
Spanish-speaking  Jews  into  Turkey,  and  French- 
speaking  Jews  into  Germany  or  Italy. 

How  completely  Europeanized  Jews  had  be- 
come by  the  end  of  the  first  Christian  millen- 
nium was  strikingly  shown  by  the  Takkanah  of 
Rabbi  Gershom  of  Mayence  (about  looo  A.D.), 
by  which  Jews  agreed  to  adopt  monogamy  while 

^  The}'  even  retained  the  different  Spanish  dialects,  as  was 
shown  by  their  keeping  separate  the  congregations  of  Catalonia, 
of  Aragon,  and  of  Castile,  even  at  Constantinople,  or  Salonica. 

134 


JEWS    BECOME    EUROPEANS 

dwelling  In  Christian  lands.  Owing  to  the  Jew- 
ish principle  that  the  Law  is  perfect  and  perpet- 
ual, It  could  not  be  granted  that  the  patriarchs 
had  done  anything  illegal  In  marrying  more  wives 
than  one;  but  the  rabbis  wisely  recognized  that 
they  would  be  outraging  the  feelings  of  their 
neighbors  if  they  continued  this  Oriental  practice 
In  Europe,  and  voluntarily  agreed,  by  the  above- 
mentioned  enactment,  to  confine  themselves  to  one 
wife  while  living  surrounded  by  Christians,'  In 
so  doing  they  were  only  following  a  general  prin- 
ciple which  has  been  summed  up  In  the  Jewish 
legal  maxim,  "DIna  de-Malkuta  DIna"  (the  law 
of  the  land  is  the  law  of  the  Jew),  which  pre- 
vented any  wide  divergence  between  Jewish  and 
European  law,  even  when  administered  by  Jews, 
except  with  regard  to  their  religious  require- 
ments. Dr.  A.  A.  Neuman  gives  an  interesting 
instance  of  this  from  the  Responsa  of  Ibn  Adret, 
In  which  that  authority  declares  that  the  king 
of    Aragon    could    legally,    according    to    Jewish 

^Occasionally  Jews  got  permission  from  the  kings  to  marry 
more  than  one  wife  (presumably  when  the  first  wife  was  sterile). 
(See  Jacobs's  Spanish- J eivish  History,  Nos.  3,  148,  946,  1226, 
1227.)  It  will  be  remembered  that  Luther  gave  permission  for 
the  duke  of  Hesse  to  have  two  wives,  for  the  same  reason.  For 
the  Papalist  position,  see  A.  L.  Smith,  Church  and  State,  72. 

135 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS   TO    CIVILIZATION 

law,  do  something  which  a  Jewish  king  in  the 
Holy  Land  would  not  be  allowed  to  do  under  the 
same  jurisdiction.^ 

Thus,  in  the  last  resort,  the  Jews  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  were,  in  a  measure,  true  nationals  of 
the  different  states  where  they  had  their  dwelling- 
place,  even  though  they  had  a  special  status  and 
autonomy  in  matters  concerning  themselves.  But 
this  did  not  make  them  so  conspicuous  in  the 
medieval  State,  since  almost  all  men  who  had 
similar  occupations  possessed  their  own  distin- 
guishing status,  and  in  most  cases  had  their  own 
law  courts  to  decide  disputes  among  themselves. 
The  differentia  was  given  by  the  Church  policy, 
which  deliberately  aimed  at  degrading  the  Jewish 
status  by  special  marks  on  clothing  and  by  inter- 
dictions of  all  kinds  against  community  of  in- 
terest and  community  of  intercourse  between  Jew 
and  Christian. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  this,  Jew  and  Christian 
did  share  in  the  common  life  to  a  large  extent, 
even  in  sport,  and  certainly  in  commerce  and, 
above  all,  in  the  world  of  intellect.  As  we  have 
seen,   Jews   adopted   the   language   and   even   the 

'^Publications  of  the  American  Jeii:ish  Historical  Society,  No. 
22,  p.  65. 

136 


JEWS    BECOME    EUROPEANS 

dress  of  the  nations  among  whom  they  dwelt, 
until  they  were  expelled  or  obliged  to  wear  the 
badge.  They  constituted  a  common  element  in 
Western  Europe,  which  helped  to  give  that  sense 
of  community  which  is  so  striking  a  characteristic 
of  mediaeval  times  and  is  the  foundation  of  the 
common  feeling  of  European  civilization  in  the 
present  day.  Yet,  by  their  peculiar  relation  to 
the  kings  and  emperors,  they  also  contributed  to 
that  growth  of  nationalism  which  broke  up  the 
consensus  of  the  Holy  Roman  empire  and  made 
modern  Europe.  But  besides  these  effects  on 
European  culture,  the  existence  of  a  separate  class 
of  Jews,  with  a  special  status  in  most  of  the 
countries  of  Christendom  and  in  all  those  of 
Islam  during  the  early  Middle  Ages,  enabled  them 
to  act  as  intermediaries  between  East  and  West, 
between  Christendom  and  Islam,  both  in  the  in- 
tellectual and  in  the  material  spheres,  as  will  be 
shown  in  the  following  chapters. 


137 


CHAPTER    IV 

Medieval  Jews  as  Intellectual  Inter- 
medl^ries 

We  have  seen  that,  owing  to  the  peculiar 
status,  religious  and  legal,  of  Jews  In  the  Holy 
Roman  empire  and  in  Islam,  they  held  a  privi- 
leged position  in  both  spheres.  In  consequence 
of  this  they  formed  suitable  intermediaries  be- 
tween Christian  and  Aluslim  lands  where  they 
were  both  permitted  to  travel  and  could  find 
kinsmen  or  coreligionists  wherever  they  did  so. 
As  a  consequence  we  soon  find  them  monopoliz- 
ing international  trade  between  East  and  West 
under  the  name  of  Radanites,  as  described  by 
Ibn  Khordadhbeh  at  the  beginning  of  the  ninth 
century.^  They  carried  goods  not  only  but 
also  ideas  from  East  to  West,  for  in  the  ninth 
and  tenth  centuries  the  Orient  was  practically  the 
sole  factory  of  thought.  The  early  Caliphs,  as 
soon    as    they    had    consolidated    their    conquests, 

^  See  chapter  vi. 

138 


JEWS    AS    INTELLECTUAL    INTERMEDIARIES 

sought  to  make  accessible  to  their  subjects  the 
wisdom  of  the  ancient  world,  so  far  as  still  ex- 
tant in  Syriac  translations  from  the  Greek,  con» 
centrating  at  first  their  attention  upon  Greek 
astronomy  and  medicine,  but  also  making  ac- 
cessible the  chief  works  of  Aristotle  as  a  guide  to 
systematizing  their  own  thought.  The  Jews 
who  lived  in  Muslim  countries  soon  adopted 
from  their  Arab  confreres  this  Greek  science 
and  thought,  and  were  later  able,  in  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  to  help  transfer 
it  to  the  newly  created  schools  and  universities 
of  Europe,  which  thus  owes  to  them  a  catalysing 
influence,  at  a  critical  moment,  in  the  develop- 
ment of  European  thought  and  culture. 

It  is  difficult  to  appraise  this  intellectual  in- 
fluence of  Jews  on  mediaeval  Europe  at  its  true 
value.  The  subject  is  still  obscure;  it  has  not 
yet  been  worked  out  in  all  its  details  by  modern 
scholars.  There  is  still  no  adequate  account  of 
Arabic  astronomy  and  medicine,  or  even  philos- 
ophy, and  this  is  not  extraordinary,  considering 
there  Is  a  whole  world  of  Arabic  manuscripts 
still  to  be  explored.  The  mediaeval  science  of 
Europe  only  attracts  slight  attention,  owing  to 
its    completely    obsolete    and    useless    character. 

139 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Only  on  the  Jewish  side  have  we  anything  like 
an  adequate  account  of  their  translating  activities 
and  of  their  original  contributions  to  astronomy 
and  mathematics.  The  great  polyhistor,  Moritz 
Steinschneider,  devoted  seventy  years  of  his 
laborious  life  to  the  study  of  just  this  aspect  of 
Jewish  culture,  its  intermediation  In  mediaeval 
science,  and  was  fortunately  able  to  complete  his 
investigations  in  two  of  its  chief  aspects/  Un- 
fortunately, Steinschneider  disdained  putting  his 
results  In  any  shape  suitable  for  popular  compre- 
hension or  cultural  appreciation;  and  I  have  had 
great  difficulty  in  getting  at  the  real  value  of 
Jewish  contributions  from  his  drier-than-dust 
annals.  Where  the  forest  Is  difficult  to  view  on 
account  of  the  trees,  one  can  only  attempt  to 
locate  the  forest  in  its  connection  with  the  larger 
world. 

Even  when  one  has  determined  the  exact  con- 
tributions made  by  Jews  to  mediaeval  science  and 

^  Die  Hcbraeischen  Ucbersetzunge?!  des  Mittelalters,  Berlin, 
1893,  Die  Mathematik  bei  den  Juden,  Berlin,  1905.  Unfor- 
tunately, he  never  summed  up  his  researches  on  Jewish  medicine, 
and  only  wrote  a  popular  lecture  on  Jewish  contributions  to 
folk-literature  {Zur  Volksliteraiur  der  Juden,  in  Archiv  fiir  Lit- 
eraturgeschichte,  ii,  Leipzig,  1871,  pp.  1-21),  though  the  latter 
sections  of  his  Uehersetzungen  deal  sufficiently  with  this  last 
subject. 

140 


JEWS    AS    INTELLECTUAL    INTERMEDIARIES 

thought,  either  in  translated  or  in  original  form, 
the  results  may  seem  unimportant,  owing  to  the 
small  intrinsic  value  of  Arabic  and  medieval 
science  in  general.  Due  to  their  addiction  to 
book  learning,  as  opposed  to  experiment  and  ex- 
perience, the  medisevals  added  little  that  was 
positive;  it  is  probable  that  a  single  year  nowa- 
days adds  more  to  our  knowledge  of  nature  and 
of  man  than  the  whole  period  between  800  and 
1500,  which  we  may  class  as  mediaeval/  But 
slight  as  may  have  been  the  intrinsic  value  of 
mediaeval  contributions  to  science  and  thought, 
the  habit  of  thinking  was  kept  alive  by  them, 
and  this  was  no  slight  contribution.  But  for  the 
Jews  and  the  scholastics,  Europe  might  have 
fallen  into  a  deadly  monotony  of  orthodox  con- 
servatism akin  to  that  of  China. 

In  attempting  to  appraise  the  Jewish  share 
in  this  catalysis  of  European  thought,  we  have 
to  distinguish  between  their  activities,  on  the 
one  hand,  as  translators  or  intermediaries  be- 
tween  Arabic   science    and   Europe    and,    on    the 

*  The  sole  exception  seems  to  be  in  political  science,  where  the 
actual  needs  of  the  day  led  to  experiment  and  induction.  See 
Maitland,  Giercke,  and  Figgis,  From  Gerson  to  Grotius,  Cam- 
bridge, 1907.     Here  the  Jews  contributed  nothing  till  Bodin. 

141 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Other,  their  direct  and  original  contributions  which 
we  cannot,  of  course,  expect  to  be  of  intrinsically 
greater  value  than  those  of  other  mediaevals. 
It  is  in  their  intermediation  as  translators  be- 
tween Islam  and  Christendom  that  we  have  to 
find  the  chief  valuable  function  of  Jewish  in- 
tellectual activity  in  the  Middle  Ages.  And  here 
we  have  to  distinguish,  among  the  various  Jew- 
ish translations  enumerated  by  Steinschneider,  be- 
tween what  I  would  call  "terminals"  and  "junc- 
tions." When  a  Jew  translated  from  the  Arabic 
(or  sometimes  from  the  Latin)  into  Hebrew, 
and  no  translation  was  made  into  any  European 
tongue,  this  corresponds  to  a  railway  terminal, 
from  which  the  train  proceeds  no  further.  But 
if  the  translating  process  is  continued  further 
into  Latin,  we  may  regard  this  instance  as  equiv- 
alent to  a  railway  junction  through  which  many 
trains  pass.  It  is  obvious  that,  for  the  present 
purpose,  we  need  only  confine  our  attention  to 
these  translating  "junctions,"  since  it  is  only 
in  that  case  that  Jewish  activity  was  of  an  in- 
termediary kind.  We  shall  see  further  on  that 
even  what  I  have  called  "terminal  translations" 
have  significance  from  the  general  standpoint  of 
this  book. 

142 


JEWS    AS    INTELLECTUAL    INTERMEDIARIES 

It  is  not  perhaps  so  difficult  to  sum  up,  in 
broad  outline,  what  mediceval  Europe  owed  in- 
tellectually to  the  Arabs.  There  is,  first  and 
foremost,  the  Indian  numerals  with  the  use  of 
the  zero  and  the  decimal  system,  which  we  still 
call  "Arabic  figures" ;  with  this  came  Indian 
geometry.  Then  most  of  the  astronomical  tables 
used  by  astronomers,  ship-masters,  and  map- 
makers  in  mediaeval  times  were  derived  from 
the  Arabs.  As  we  can  tell  from  their  names, 
many  drugs  and  condiments  came  from  the 
Saracens,  and  some  of  mediaeval  medical  prac- 
tice can  be  traced  back  to  them.  Even  at  the 
present  day  a  certain  number  of  folk-tales,  de- 
rived from  India  and  still  current  among  the 
folk,  can  be  traced  directly  through  Arabia. 
Along  with  these  we  may  reckon  the  game  of 
chess,  which,  though  Indian  in  origin  and  Per- 
sian by  name,  came  into  Europe  with  the  Moors. 
Besides  these,  mediaeval  acquaintance  with  cer- 
tain of  the  Greek  writers,  notably  Aristotle  in 
philosophy  and  Galen  in  medicine,  was  acquired 
in  Arabic  forms,  while  the  cycle  of  thought, 
known  as  Averroism,  had  a  remarkable,  if  re- 
stricted, influence  on  the  progress  of  free  thought 
in  Europe.    Jews  were,  as  we  shall  see,  intimately 

143 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

connected  with  every  one  of  these  movements 
or  contributions,  and  in  every  case  it  may  be 
doubted  if  they  would  have  spread  to  Europe 
without  the  intermediation  of  Jews  by  means,  in 
most  cases,  of  translation. 

The  chief  centers  of  this  translating  activity 
of  the  Jews  were  Toledo  and  Naples,  both  out- 
posts of  Christian  Europe  on  the  borders  of 
Muslim  Spain  and  Sicily.  The  fanaticism  of 
the  Almohades  had  driven  Jews  of  Muslim  lands, 
like  Abraham  ibn  Ezra,  the  Ibn  Tibbon  family, 
across  into  Christian  countries  where  they  brought 
to  their  coreligionists  a  knowledge  of  Arabic 
science  which  they  translated  into  Hebrew.  The 
need  of  translating  into  that  language  the  works 
of  the  great  Jewish  thinkers  like  Saadya,  Bahya, 
Judah  ha-LeV'i,  and  Maimonides  also  led  to  much 
translating  activity  from  Arabic  into  Hebrew.  As 
an  outcome  of  this,  great  Christian  patrons  of 
learning,  v/ho  were  anxious  to  acquire  the  wis- 
dom of  the  Arabs,  then  the  most  powerful  as 
well  as  the  most  cultured  people  on  earth,  made 
use  of  Jewish  translators  from  the  Arabic  to  help 
in  the  transmission.  Among  these  patrons  may 
be  specially  mentioned  the  archbishop  Raymond 
of   Toledo    in   the    twelfth    century,    Charles    of 

144 


JEWS    AS    INTELLECTUAL    INTERMfeDIARIES 

Anjou  and  the  emperor  Frederick  II  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  Alfonso  X  in  the  same  cen- 
tury, and  Robert  of  Anjou  and  Pedro  III  of 
Aragon  in  the  fourteenth  century.  In  many  cases 
the  translations  thus  ordered  appeared  under  the 
names  of  Christian  translators,  who  made  use  of 
the  Jews  merely  as  "understudies"  or  dragomen 
who  probably  read  out  the  translation  from  the 
Arabic  (or  Hebrew)  into  the  vernacular,  Span- 
ish or  Italian,  which  the  Christian  translator  then 
turned  into  Latin.  Roger  Bacon,  in  his  Com- 
pendium Stiidu,^  describes  the  process  in  the 
following  terms:  "But  far  greater  errors  happen 
in  translating  philosophy.  Wherefore,  when  a 
many  translations  on  all  kinds  of  knowledge  have 
been  given  us  by  Gerard  of  Cremona,  Michael 
the  Scot,  Alfred  the  Englishman,  Hermann  the 
German,  and  William  the  Fleming,  you  cannot 
imagine  how  many  blunders  occur  in  their  works, 
(Besides,  they  did  not  even  know  Arabic.)  In 
the  same  way  Michael  Scot  claimed  the  merit  of 
numerous  translations.  But  it  is  certain  that 
Andrew  a  Jew  laboured  at  them  more  than  he 
did  .    .    .   and  so  with  the  rest." 

We   have  several   instances  of  such  collabora- 

'  Ed.  Brewer,  p.  47 L 

145 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

tion  in  addition  to  those  hinted  at  by  Roger 
Bacon.  Jacob  ben  Makir  helped  Johannes  de 
Brixia  to  translate  Al-Zarkali  into  Latin,  1263. 
A  certain  Abraham  assisted  Ralph  of  Bruges 
with  the  translation  of  a  work  on  the  Astrolabe, 
Jacob  Anatoli  helped  Michael  Scot  with  his  trans- 
lation of  al-Farghani,  and  a  certain  Magister 
Maynus,  afterward  baptized  under  the  name  of 
John,  helped  John  de  Planis  to  translate  Aver- 
roes.  A  Jew  named  Jacob  helped  in  Paravitius's 
translation  of  one  of  Avenzoar's  medical  works. 
When  Plato  of  Tivoli  dedicates  one  of  his  works 
to  the  convert  John  of  Seville,  we  can  have  little 
doubt  that  he  was  indebted  to  him  for  help  in 
some  of  his  translations,  as  we  know  he  was 
similarly  indebted  to  Abraham  bar  Hiyya  (known 
to  the  Christian  world  as  Savasorda).  But  quite 
apart  from  this  indirect  help  in  the  process  of 
transmission  from  Orient  to  Occident,  we  have 
direct  evidence  of  Jewish  participation  in  all  the 
lines  of  research  mentioned  above  as  due  to  the 
Arabs,  and  to  that  we  may  now  return. 

It  is  impossible  to  overestimate  the  importance 
of  the  adoption  by  Europe  of  the  Indian  arith- 
metic with  its  decimal  system  and  use  of  zero. 
Without    this    modern    mathematics    would    have 

146 


JEWS    AS    INTELLECTUAL    INTERMEDIARIES 

been  impossible,  and  on  mathematics  the  whole 
superstructure  of  modern  civilization  is  erected.^ 
Now  the  latest  inquirers  on  the  introduction  of 
Arabic  figures  (that  is,  Indian  numerals)  into 
Europe  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Jewish 
Radanites,  to  whom  we  shall  have  to  refer  again, 
"must  necessarily  have  spread  abroad  a  knowl- 
edge of  all  number  systems  used  in  recording 
prices  or  in  the  computations  of  the  market." " 
Their  views  are  unexpectedly  confirmed  by  a 
passage  in  Abraham  ibn  Ezra,  who,  in  speak- 
ing of  the  transmission  of  the  Indian  stories 
known  as  Kalilah  wa-Dimnah,  to  which  we  shall 
refer  later,  mentions  the  Jew  whom  the  Caliph 
Es-Saffah  (750-5)  employed  to  translate  the 
book,  who  was  sent  by  him  to  India  and  brought 
back  a  Hindu  named  Kanka,  who  introduced 
the  Indian  numerals.  It  is  worth  while  quoting 
Abraham  ibn  Ezra's  exact  words:  "In  olden 
times  there  was  neither  science  nor  religion  among 

'  See  an  interesting  development  of  this  thesis  in  Cornhill 
Magazine,  1905.  It  is  obvious  at  once  that  engineering,  quan- 
titative chemistry,  and  statistics  depend  directly  upon  mathe- 
matical progress. 

•  Hindu-Arabic  Numerals,  by  Prof.  D.  E.  Smith  and  Dr. 
L.  C.  Karpinski  (Ginn  &  Co.),  p.  101.  See  m\'  review,  Jeivis/i 
Quarterly  Revieiv,  New  Series,  vol  v,  p.  123. 

147 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

the  sons  of  Ishmael  .  .  .  till  the  great  king, 
by  name  Es-Saftah  (750-5),  arose,  who  heard 
that  there  were  many  sciences  to  be  found  in 
India.  .  .  .  And  there  came  men  saying  that 
there  was  in  India  a  very  mighty  book  on  the 
secrets  of  government,  in  the  form  of  a  fable. 
.  .  .  And  the  name  of  the  book  was  Kalilah  and 
Dimnah.  .  .  .  Thereupon  he  sent  for  a  Jew 
who  knew  both  languages,  and  ordered  him  to 
translate  this  book.  .  .  .  And  when  he  saw  that 
the  contents  of  the  book  were  extraordinary — 
as  indeed  they  are — he  desired  to  know  the  science 
of  the  Indians,  and  he  accordingly  sent  the  Jew 
to  Arin,  whence  he  brought  back  one  who  knew 
the  Indian  numerals,  and  besides  many  astron- 
omical writings (  ?)."  ^ 

Not  alone  was  a  Jew  thus  the  means  of  bring- 
ing the  Indian  numerals  from  India  to  Arabic 
lands,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was 
through  a  Jew  that  the  Indian  arithmetic  was  in- 
troduced to  European  students  of  mathematics. 
For  it  was  John  of  Seville,  known  also  as  Aven 
Deuth     (that    is,     Ibn    Daud),    who    translated 

'  Steinschneider  in  Ze'ttschrift  der  Deutschen  Morgenldndischen 
Gesellschaft,  vol.  24,  pp.  353-354.  See  also  Jacobs,  Fables  of 
Bidpai,  pp.  xviii-xix. 

148 


JEWS    AS    INTELLECTUAL    INTERMEDIARIES 

Muhammed  al-Khwarizmi's  work  on  Practical 
Indian  Arithmetic  into  Latin,  which  first  brought 
this  method  to  the  notice  of  European  students. 
The  method  was  named  after  the  author's  name, 
"Algorism,"  which,  in  the  last  resort,  means  "the 
method  of  Khiva."  ^  In  a  similar  way  Indian 
geometry  was  introduced  at  the  same  time  by 
Plato  of  Tivoli,  John  of  Seville's  friend,  who 
translated  Into  Latin  from  the  Hebrew  Abraham 
bar  Hiyya's  work  on  the  subject,  which  he  en- 
titled "Liber  Embadorum."  Later  on  both 
books,  John's  "Algorism"  and  Plato's  "Liber 
Embadorum,"  were  used  by  Leonardo  di  Pisa 
as  the  foundation  for  his  text-books  on  Indian 
arithmetic,  geometry,  and  trigonometry,  on  which 
the  whole  study  of  these  subjects  was  based  In  the 
Middle  Ages.  There  could  be  no  doubt  of  the 
intermediation  of  the  Jews  in  introducing  this  vital 
change  in  the  foundations  of  European  mathe- 
matics. 

In  astronomy,  the  chief  form  of  applied 
mathematics,  Jews  were  equally  prominent  in 
transferring  the  Arabic  knowledge  of  the  stars 
and     Greco-Arabic     astronomy     generally     from 

*  Cantor,   Gesch.  d.  Math.    (Leipsig,   1880),  i,   612,   and  other 
references  given  by  Steinschneider,  Heb.  Uebers.,  p.  982,  Note  64. 

149 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Islam  to  Christendom.  It  is  true  that  the  trans- 
lation into  Latin  of  the  Almagest  of  Ptolemy 
was  made  in  1117  by  Gerard  of  Cremona  with- 
out, so  far  as  known,  any  assistance  from  a 
Jew.^  But  all  the  more  important  astronomical 
tables  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  either  trans- 
lated or  compiled  by  the  help  of  Jews,  and  it 
was  of  course  these  tables  which  were  the  founda- 
tion of  all  practical  applications  of  astronomy 
in  observatory  work,  map-making,  and,  above 
all,  navigation.  In  large  part  these  tables  were 
original  contributions,  inasmuch  as  they  implied 
adaptation  of  the  astronomical  formulae  to  the 
particular  epoch  for  which  they  were  written. 
Strictly  speaking,  therefore,  their  enumeration 
would  come  under  the  next  section  of  our  inquiry 
dealing  with  original  work.  But,  as  much  of  the 
work  involved  was  also  merely  translation  and 
adaptation,  we  may  perhaps  sum  up  their  his- 
tory in  this  place. 

In  the  year  1070  a  number  of  Jewish  astron- 
omers helped  in  the  compilation   of  the  Toledo 

^  He  also  translated  Euclid;  so  that  Greek  mathematics,  both 
pure  (Euclid)  and  applied  (Ptolemy),  was  introduced  into 
Europe  without  Jewish  aid,  a  striking  exception  to  the  general 
rule.  Roger  Bacon,  however,  implies  that  Gerard,  like  Michael 
Scot,  had  a  Jewish  interpreter  by  his  side.     See  supra,  p.  145. 

150 


JEWS    AS    INTELLECTUAL    INTERMEDIARIES 

Tables,  edited  by  Ibrahim  al-Zarkali  just  before 
Toledo  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Cid/  When 
Alfonso  X  of  Castile  desired  to  utilize  these 
tables  and  adapt  them  to  the  epoch  of  his  time, 
he  obtained  the  services  of  Isaac  ibn  Sid  (Don 
Zag)  and  other  Jewish  astronomers,  who  com- 
piled the  Alfonsine  Tables  and  translated  them 
into  Spanish.  These,  again,  were  re-adapted  by 
Isaac  Israeli,  also  in  Toledo,  in  13 lo,  and  his 
tables  were  later  utilized  by  Scaliger  and  Petavius. 
Again,  in  Toledo,  Joseph  ibn  Wakkar  made  new 
tables  in  1396,  and  a  little  before  that  time  Pedro 
III  (IV)  of  Aragon  had  new  tables  made  for 
him  by  Jews.  Emanuel  ben  Jacob,  known  as 
Bonfils  de  Tarascon,  compiled  valuable  tables 
based  upon  those  of  al-Battani.  These  were  later 
quoted  by  Favaro,  Pico  de  la  Mirandola,  and 
Peiresc,  having  been  translated  into  Latin  in  1406 
by  John  Luca,  M.D.  The  most  important  of 
these  Jewish  tables,  however,  were  those  com- 
posed by  Abraham  Zacuto,  teacher  of  astronomy 
at  Salamanca,  and  astronomer  royal  to  King 
Emanuel  of  Portugal  in  1492.  These  tables  were 
translated  into  Latin  and  Spanish  by  his  pupil, 
Joseph  Vechino,  and  were  used  by  Columbus  in 

'  M.  Steinschneider,  Etudes  sur  Zarkali,  Rome,  1888. 
151 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

his  epoch-making  voyage  to  the  New  World. 
His  copy  still  exists,  with  his  autograph  notes, 
at  the  Columbina  at  Seville/  It  may  be  added 
that  all  these  tables  may  be  traced  back  to  the 
Indian  ones  referred  to  by  Abraham  ibn  Ezra 
in  the  passage  given  above,  in  which  a  Jew  was 
also  intermediary  and  which  were  adapted  by 
a  Jewish  astronomer. 

The  works  of  al-Battani  and  al-Farghani,  the 
two  chief  Arabic  writers  on  astronomy,  were 
translated  into  Latin  from  the  Arabic  by  Johan- 
nes Hispalensis  about  1140.  Al-Kindi's  treatise 
on  the  Moon  Stations  was  translated  for  Robert 
of  Anjou,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, by  Kalonymos  ben  Kalonymos,  known  to  his 
Christian  friends  as  Maestro  Calo.  Al-Heitham's 
general  work  on  astronomy  was  translated  at  the 
request  of  Alfonso  X  by  a  Jew  named  Abraham 
into  Spanish  and  thence,  probably  by  a  Chris- 
tian, into  Latin.  A  later  Hebrew  translation, 
by  Jacob  ben  Makir,  was  translated  much  later 
by  Abraham  de  Balmes  for  Cardinal  Grimani, 
In  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.  It  must 
be  remembered  that  Jews  had  a  special  interest 

^  M.  Kayserling,  Christopher  Columbus  and  the  Discovery  of 
America,  pn.  47-8,  note. 

152 


JEWS    AS    INTELLECTUAL    INTERMEDIARIES 

in  astronomical  calculations  owing  to  the  di- 
vergence of  their  calendar,  both  from  the  Chris- 
tian and  the  Muhommedan  one.  It  must  be  re- 
membered, too,  that  they  took  an  equal  interest 
with  those  of  the  daughter  religions  in  the 
promises  of  astrology. 

Turning  to  medicine,  the  other  chief  science 
in  which  the  Arabs  helped  to  transmit  the  wis- 
dom of  the  Greeks  into  Europe,  one  cannot  trace 
any  intermediation  of  Jews  in  this  regard,  the 
works  of  Galen  and  Hippocrates  being  trans- 
lated from  the  Arabic  by  Constantinus  Afer  and 
Gerard  of  Cremona.  Curiously  enough,  the  first 
of  these  translators  rendered  accessible  to  Eu- 
rope the  chief  Jewish  physician,  Isaac  Judasus, 
who  wrote  in  Arabic.  There  is  a  Spanish  trans- 
lation, probably  by  a  Jew,  in  the  Escurial,  which 
also  contains  another  of  the  works  of  Mai- 
monides  on  Haemorrhoids.  Maimonides's  well- 
known  letter  on  Diet,  written  for  the  son  of 
Saladdin,  was  translated  into  Latin  by  the  con- 
vert John  of  Capua.  But  in  adapting  the  works 
of  the  Arabic  medical  writers  into  Latin  the  Jews 
were  exceptionally  active.  The  chief  translations 
in  which  Jews  helped  were  the  Continens  of 
Rhazes,   translated   by   Moses   Faradj   at  the   re- 

153 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

quest  of  Charles  of  Anjou  in  1280,  and  the 
CoUiget  of  Averroes,  translated  by  the  Jew 
Bonacosa  at  Padua,  1255.  Jews  also  helped 
in  the  translation  of  the  Book  of  S'tmples,  by 
Albucasis,  and  ^he  Rules  of  Health,  by  Aven- 
zoar  (Ibn  Zuhr),  1281.  Jewish  activity  in 
medicev^al  medicine  was  seemingly  more  practical 
and  original  than  intermediary,  as  we  shall  see 
further  on. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  instances  of  Jew- 
ish intermediation  is  afforded  by  the  strange 
story  of  the  transmission  of  a  number  of  Indian 
tales  from  east  to  west,  known  under  the  various 
titles  of  ^'Fables  of  Bidpai"  (or  Pilpay),  "Kalilah 
wa-Dimnah,"  "Directorium  humanse  vitae,"  and 
so  on.  I  have  myself  edited  the  English  version 
of  this,  under  the  title  "The  Moral  Philosophy 
of  Doni,"  which  I  have  described  as  "The  Eng- 
lish version  of  an  Italian  adaptation  of  a  Spanish 
translation  of  a  Latin  version  of  a  Hebrew  trans- 
lation of  an  Arabic  adaptation  of  the  Pehlevi 
version  of  the  Indian  original."  This  has  had  an 
extraordinary  vogue.  From  the  pedigree  at- 
tached to  my  edition,  I  calculate  that  the  tales 
have  been  translated  into  thirty-eight  languages, 
in  one  hundred  and  twelve  different  versions  which 

lo4 


JEWS    AS    INTELLECTUAL    INTERMEDIARIES 

have  passed  into  about  one  hundred  and  eighty 
editions.  Some  of  the  tales  contained  in  it  had 
extraordinary  popularity,  and  it  has  even  been 
calculated  that  one-tenth  of  the  common  fairy- 
tale store  of  Europe  has  been  derived  from  this 
source.  Two  of  the  links  in  the  above-men- 
tioned chain  are  certainly  due  to  Jews,  the 
Hebrew  translation  of  Rabbi  JoeL  and  the  Latin 
translation  of  John  of  Capua,  while,  if  Abraham 
ibn  Ezra's  statement,  quoted  above,  is  founded 
on  fact,  the  first  stage  of  the  travels  of  these 
stories  from  India  was  also  accompanied  by  a 
Jew.  According  to  al-Mas'udi,  the  game  of 
Chess  was  also  introduced  at  the  same  time  as 
the  tales,  with  which  the  date  given  by  their 
latest  historian  agrees.'  There  are  similar  tales 
known  by  the  name  of  "The  Book  of  Sindibad" 
and  "Barlaam  and  Josaphat."  But  though  both 
appeared  in  Hebrew,  these  only  formed  a  side- 
switch  in  the  train  of  transmission,  and  they  can- 
not be  counted  to  the  credit  of  Jewish  intermedia- 
tion. Perhaps  one  may  refer  here  to  a  similar 
set  of  stories,  written  in  Latin  by  the  convert 
Petrus   Alfonsi   about    1115,   entitled   "Disciplina 

'H.  J.  R.  Murray,   The  History  of  Chess,  Oxford,   1913,  pp. 

26-7,  209-10. 

155 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

clericalis,"  most  of  which  have  been  adapted  in 
French,  as  Fableaux,  and  utilized  in  the  novel 
literature  of  Boccaccio  and  his  followers.  But 
these  books  are  of  extreme  interest  as  showing 
a  common  field  for  Jewish  and  Christian  appre- 
ciation of  the  tale-telling  instincts  of  man. 

As  regards  Aristotle  and  his  great  commen- 
tator, Averroes,  we  must  distinguish.  It  is  usu- 
ally stated  that  Aristotle  came  to  mediaeval  Eu- 
rope mainly  through  Latin  translations  of  Arabic 
commentaries  on  Aristotle,  and  secondly  that 
these  Arabic  comments  were  translated  into  He- 
brew and  from  thence  into  Latin  by  Jews.  Both 
statements  are  true  and  are  proved  to  the  hilt  in 
Kenan's  earliest,  most  brilliant,  and  perhaps  most 
original  piece  of  work,  his  Averroes  et 
rAverrohme.  But  the  Latin  translations  made 
by  Jews  from  the  Hebrew  are  separated  by  three 
hundred  years  from  those  made  directly  from  the 
Arabic,  which  were  the  only  ones  that  could  have 
had  direct  influence  on  scholasticism.  The  earliest 
translations  of  Averroes  were  made  by  Michael 
Scot  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
before  most  of  the  Hebrew  versions  had  been 
made.  It  is  possible  that  Roger  Bacon's  assertion 
that  he  was  assisted  by  a  Jew  named  Andrew  ap- 

156 


JEWS    AS    INTELLECTUAL    INTERMEDIARIES 

plies  to  these  translations,  but  in  that  case  his 
assistance  must  have  been  with  regard  to  the 
Arabic  text.  The  Jewish  translations  from  the 
Hebrew  into  Latin  were  those  of  Elia  del  Medigo 
for  Pico  de  la  Mirandola  about  1480,  and  those 
of  Jacob  Mantino  and  Abraham  de  Balmes  be- 
fore 1520.^  The  School  of  Padua,  on  which 
Renan  lays  so  much  stress,  had  its  chief  activity 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  its  influence,  which 
Renan  probably  overrates,  was  part  of  the  gen- 
eral Renaissance  movement  in  favor  of  free 
thought.  Averroism  as  represented  by  the  He- 
brew versions  are,  as  regards  the  Middle  Ages, 
"terminal,"  and  have  to  be  considered  later  with 
relation  to  other  internal  movements  of  Jewish 
intellectual  life  during  that  period. 

This  may  serve  as  a  transition  to  the  second 
branch  of  our  subject,  the  direct  contributions  of 
Jews  to  mediaeval  civilization,  and  first  with  re- 
gard to  medicine.  The  mere  existence  of  fifty 
Jewish  medical  authors  in  Arabic,  enumerated  by 
Ibn    Usaibi'a,"    does    not    prove    anything    more 

^  The  sole  exception  to  this  statement  seems  to  be  the  transla- 
tion of  the  Middle  Commentary  on  the  Meteorology  made  after 
the  Hebrew  version  of  Kalonymos  ben  Kalonymos,  1316.  Stein- 
schneider,  Hebrdische  Uebersetzungen,  p.  139. 

"The  list  is  given,  after  Leclerc,  by  Isidore  Loeb,  in  Magazin 
fur  die  IVissenschaft  des  Judentums,  vol.  vii,  pp.  101-110. 

157 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

than  direct  influence  on  Arabic  medicine,  and  thus 
indirect  on  European.  The  chief  Arabic  Jewish 
writers  who  seem  to  have  had  direct  influence 
on  mediaeval  European  medicine  were  Isaac  Is- 
raeh  on  Fever,  and  Moses  Maimonides  on  Diet, 
both  of  which  works  were  early  translated  into 
Latin  and  were  often  quoted  as  authoritative. 
As  is  well  known,  the  chief  centers  of  medical 
practice  and  science  in  the  early  Middle  Ages 
were  at  Salerno  and  Montpellier,  and  it  is  usually 
asserted  that  Jews  helped  both  in  the  founding 
and  development  of  these  schools.^  Very  little 
evidence,  however,  can  be  adduced  with  regard 
to  Salerno.  Among  the  early  professors  of  the 
ninth  century  were  two  named  Joseph  and  Josan, 
but  they  are  not  definitely  stated  to  be  Jews.  A 
favorite  manual  on  anatomy  at  Salerno  was  that 
of  one  Copho,  stated  to  be  a  Jew,  but  as  the 
title  of  his  treatise  is  Anatomia  Porci,  the  at- 
tribution seems  very  doubtful.  Nor  is  the  evi- 
dence with  regard  to  Montpellier  of  a  much  more 
definite  character,  though  we  know  that  Abraham 

*  F.  H.  Garrison,  History  of  Medicine,  p.  90,  claims  Aven- 
zoar  as  a  Jew,  which  would  add  greatly  to  the  importance  of 
Arabic  Jewish  medicine.  Steinschneider,  however,  denies  him 
to  be  a  Jew  {Hebidische  Uebersrtzungen,  p.  748). 

158 


JEWS    AS    INTELLECTUAL    INTERMEDIARIES 

Ablgdor  studied  medicine   at   Montpellier  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

Turning  to  astronomy,  we  have  somewhat  more 
definite  information  about  original  contributions 
of  Jews,  chiefly  owing  to  recent  discoveries  about 
Levi  ben  Gerson,  the  inventor  of  the  Jacob's 
Staff,  described  by  him  in  his  philosophical  work 
Ifars  of  the  Lord,  finished  about  1340,  of 
which  no  less  than  one  hundred  and  thirty-six 
chapters  are  devoted  to  astronomy.  These  were 
immediately  translated  into  Latin  by  orders  of 
Pope  Clement  VI  in  1342,  but  when  the  original 
Hebrew  was  published  in  1560  that  section  was 
omitted.  This  Jacob's  Staff,  so  named  after 
Genesis  30,  37,  served  the  purpose  of  a  quadrant 
to  determine  the  Right  Ascension  of  sun  and 
stars,  introduced  by  Regiomontanus  after  reading 
the  Latin  translation  of  Gersonides.^  It  was  also 
used  by  Martin  Behain,  by  Columbus,  Vasco  da 
Gama,  and  Magellan,  and  its  general  use  among 
mariners  was  not  given  up  till  Hadley  introduced 
his  quadrant  in  1731.  Another  quadrant,  intro- 
duced by  a  Jew,  was  that  of  Jacob  ben  Makir, 
after  whom  it  was  called  "Quadrans  Judaicus," 
which  was  an  improvement  on  the  old  quadrant 

'  See  A.  Schueck,  Der  Jakobsstab,  Munich,  1896. 
159 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

of  Robert  the  Englishman.  We  hav^e  already  re- 
ferred to  the  large  number  of  astronomical  tables 
executed  by  the  Jews  in  the  Middle  Ages  and 
culminating  in  the  Almanack  Perpetuus  of 
Abraham  Zacuto,  used  by  Columbus  in  his  epoch- 
making  voyages. 

Levi  ben  Gerson  died  in  1344;  he  is  also  dis- 
tinguished in  the  history  of  science  as  the  dis- 
coverer of  the  "Camera  Obscura,"  which  he  de- 
scribed fully. ^  Hitherto  the  earliest  mention  of 
this  ingenious  instrument  is  given  in  the  Vitruvius 
of  152 1,  though  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  who  died 
two  years  before,  had  known  of  it.'  Bonet  de 
Latis,  physician  to  the  Borgia  Pope  Alexander 
VI,  invented  certain  astronomical  rings  for  ascer- 
taining planetary  orbits.  Thus  the  contributions 
of  Jews  to  mediaeval  astronomy  were  of  appre- 
ciable importance,  and  the  art  of  navigation  owes 
them  much. 

So,  too,  in  the  cognate  art  of  map-making, 
there  are  two  Jewish  names,  Mecia  and  Cres- 
ques,  the  latter  of  considerable  importance.  At 
Mallorca  in  the  Balearic  Islands,  there  lived  one 

^  See  J.  Carlebach,  Levi  ben  Gerson  ah  Maihematiker,  Berlin, 
1910. 

"M.  Curtze  in  Himmel  und  Erde,  1901,  pp.  225-6. 
160 


JEWS    AS    INTELLECTUAL    INTERMEDIARIES 

Jaffuda  Cresques  known  as  "Cresques  lo  Juheu," 
who  is  usually  credited  with  that  monument  of 
cartography  known  as  the  Catalan  Map,  sent  as 
a  present  from  the  monarch  of  Aragon  to  his 
brother  of  France,  138 1,  and  still  extant  in  the 
Bibliotheque  Nationale.  This  marks  an  epoch 
in  European  map-making,  inasmuch  as  it  added 
the  discoveries  of  Marco  Polo  to  the  conventional 
map-drawing.  When  Prince  Henry  started  his 
nautical  observatory  at  Sagres,  and  thus  began 
the  modern  epoch  of  geographical  discovery,  he 
summoned  Cresques  to  take  the  leadership  in 
1423.  It  has  been  suggested  that  Cresques  must 
have  known  Levi  ben  Gerson's  work  and  intro- 
duced the  use  of  the  Jacob's  Staff,  but  this  is 
more  than  doubtful.  He  certainly  did  not  add 
any  information  from  Jewish  travellers  like  Ben- 
jamin of  Tudela  and  the  others,^  who  indeed  had 
no  influence  on  geographical  science,  and  are  to 
be  included  among  the  "terminals"  (see  infra, 
p.   181). 

Jews  contributed  not  alone  to  the  established 
sciences  of  medicine,  astronomy,  and  geography, 
but  also  to  the  pseudo-sciences  which  had  an  equal 

^Enumerated  by  Zunz,  Gesammelte  Sc/iriften,  Berlin,  1875,  pp. 
146,  secj. 

161 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

vogue  in  the  Middle  Ages.  They  were  as  earnest 
believers  in  astrology  (with  the  exception  of 
Maimonides)  as  their  Christian  contemporaries, 
though  it  is  difficult  to  point  out  any  particular 
astrological  work  which  they  either  transmitted 
to  Europe  or  impressed  upon  it  by  original  con- 
tributions. One  of  the  earliest  Arabic  astrologers, 
however,  Vvas  the  Jew  Mashallah.^  So,  too,  in 
alchemy  there  are  traces  in  Hebrew  manuscripts 
of  participation  of  Jews  in  this  foster-father  of 
modern  chemistry.  Vincent  of  Beauvais  quotes 
as  his  chief  master  in  alchemy  the  Jew  Jacob 
Aranicus.^  One  of  the  instruments  still  used 
among  chemical  apparatus  is  known  as  the  "bain 
marie,"  and  is  stated  to  have  originated  with  one 
Maria  Judaea;  but  it  is  extremely  doubtful 
whether  such  a  lady  ever  existed,  the  probability 
being  that  one  of  the  early  treatises  on  alchemy 
was  attributed  to  Miriam,  the  sister  of  Moses, ^ 
just  as  other  treatises  were  attributed  to  Solomon 
and  other  biblical  heroes.  How  far  mediaeval 
magic,  white  and  black,  was  connected  with  the 

'  Steinschneider,  Arabische  Literaiur  der  Juden,  pp.  15-23. 
^  Spec,  nat.,  vii,  107;  Spec,  doctr.,  xi,  107. 
'  Zeitschrift    der    Deutschen    Morgentdndischen    Gesellschaft, 
vol.  58,  pp.  300-309. 

162 


JEWS    AS    INTELLECTUAL    INTERMEDIARIES 

Jews  is  again  difficult  to  ascertain  or  appraise. 
The  influence  of  the  Kabbalah  can  certainly  be 
traced  in  the  amulets  and  abracadabras  of  the 
mediaeval  magicians,  but  from  the  nature  of  the 
case  the  whole  affiliation  is  difficult  to  trace,  nor 
would  much  credit  come  to  Jews  by  their  partici- 
pation in  these  blind  strivings  to  control  the  un- 
known. 


163 


CHAPTER    V 

Influence  of  Jewish  Thought  in  the 
Middle  Ages 

The  main  influence,  however,  of  mediaeval 
Jews  on  the  civilization  of  Christendom  was 
by  means  of  their  chief  thinkers,  Ibn  Gabirol 
and  Maimonides.  Their  philosophical  works 
were  translated  into  Latin,  that  of  the  former 
by  Dominic  Gundlsalvi  ^  at  Toledo,  with  the  aid 
of  the  convert  Johannes  Hispalensis,  about  1160, 
under  the  title  Pons  Vita,  and  the  latter,  under 
the  title  Dux  Neutrorum,  by  an  anonymous  trans- 
lator, who  used  the  Hebrew  translation  of  Judah 
al-Harizi  instead  of  that  of  Moses  ibn  Tibbon. 
Both  thinkers  are  quoted  by  name  and  with  re- 
spect by  all  the  chief  scholastics  of  the  thirteenth, 
the  greatest  of  the  centuries :  William  of 
Auvergne,  bishop  of  Paris  (1228-49)  '■>  Alexander 

'Called  Domingo  Gonzalez  in  the  Spanish  translation  of  the 
Fons  I'ifcp. 

164 


INFLUENCE    OF    JEWISH    THOUGHT 

of  Hales  (died  1245);  Albertus  Magnus,  count 
of  Bollstiidt  (1193-1280)  ;  and  Thomas  Aquinas 
(1225-70).  The  last  three  wrote  encyclopedias 
of  theology,  each  entitled  Sum  ma,  culminating  in 
the  Sitmma  Theolog'ue  of  Aquinas,  which  has 
ruled  Catholic  theology  down  to  the  present  day, 
having  been  declared  authoritative  by  the  penul- 
timate Pope  Leo  XIII.  In  so  far  as  these  Jewish 
thinkers  had  an  influence  on  Aquinas,  either  in 
the  form  of  adoption  or  opposition,  they  have 
thus  helped  to  shape  the  thought  of  Catholic 
Europe  and,  indirectly,  of  Protestantism  even 
down  to  the  present  day.^ 

The  reason  why  these  Jewish  thinkers,  espe- 
cially Maimonides,  had  so  great  an  effect  upon 
their  Christian  colleagues  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury was  because  the  relations  between  faith  and 
reason  had  passed  approximately  through  the 
same  phases  in  Judaism  and  Christianity,  and  had 

^In  what  follows  I  am  much  indebted  to  the  two  chief  scholars 
who  have  studied  the  relations  of  Jewish  philosophy  to  scholas- 
ticism: M.  ]oe\iBeitraege  zur  Geschichte  der  Philosophie,  Bres- 
lau,  1878;  and  J.  Guttmann,  Die  Scholastik  des  dreizehnlen  Jahr- 
hnnderts  in  ihren  Bezieliungen  zutn  Judenthum  und  zur  jiidi- 
schen  Literatur,  Breslau,  1902;  and  Das  Verhdliniss  des  Thomas 
von  Aquiiia  zum  Jadentlium  und  zur  jiidischen  Literatur,  Got- 
tingen,    1891. 

165 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

reached  an  eirenicon  by  Maimonides  early  enough 
to  afford  the  same  solution  to  the  great  scholastics. 
The  earliest  cepresentatives  of  Jewish  philosophy, 
Saadya,  Bahya,  Abraham  bar  Hiyya,  Solomon  ibn 
Gabirol,  and  Joseph  ibn  Zaddik,  were  mainly  in- 
fluenced by  the  Neo-Platonism  of  the  Kalam,  cur- 
rent among  the  Arabic  thinkers.  But,  with  Abra- 
ham ibn  Daud  (1110-1180),  the  Aristotelianism, 
which  had  been  made  predominant  in  Arabic 
thought  by  Avicenna  and  Av-erroes,  became  pre- 
dominant also  in  Jewish  thought  and  brought  into 
prominence  the  fundamental  contradictions  be- 
tween a  philosophy  founded,  like  that  of  Aristotle, 
on  pure  reason  and  a  faith  based  upon  a  written 
scripture.^  The  chief  points  of  contradiction  were 
three:  How  can  the  God  of  philosophy — the 
divine  Substance  of  the  universe — possess  such 
attributes  as  are  implied  in  the  Bible;  how  can 
He  create  a  world  in  time  as  implied  in  the  first 
chapters  of  Genesis;  and  how  can  His  Provi- 
dence  apply  to  the   individual   acts   of  man   and 

'Judah  ha-Levi,  who,  in  his  al-Khazari  (1140),  recognized 
this  contradiction,  is  outside  the  general  development  of  Jewish 
thought,  taking  a  position  corresponding  to  that  in  Arabic  phil- 
osophy of  al-Ghazali,  by  whom  indeed  he  was  strongly  influenced. 
Both  thinkers  are  opposed  altogether  to  the  application  of  phil- 
osophy to  theology. 

166 


INFLUENCE    OF    JEWISH    THOUGHT 

things?  In  addition  to  these  fundamental  prob- 
lems there  was  the  further  subsidiary  inquiry 
as  to  how  certain  individuals,  known  as  prophets, 
could  acquire  knowledge  as  to  the  true  answers 
to  these  questions.  Moses  ben  Maimon  (Mai- 
monides,  born  at  Cordova,  1135,  died  at  Cairo, 
1204)  may  be  fairly  said  to  have  solved  these 
problems  (from  the  mediaeval  standpoint)  in  his 
Arabic  work  entitled  Dalalat  al-Hairin  ("Guide 
of  the  Perplexed"),  composed  1190,  and  soon 
after  translated  into  Hebrew  by  Moses  ibn  Tibbon 
and  also  by  Judah  al-Harizi,  under  the  title 
Moreh  Nebukhn;  the  latter  version  was,  as  we 
have  seen,  translated  into  Latin  and  made  ac- 
cessible to  the  chief  scholastics  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  who  utilized  it  to  solve  exactly  the  same 
problems  which  had  arisen  in  Christian  thought 
as  in  Judaism,  and  for  the  same  reason — the 
adoption  of  Aristotelianism. 

With  the  earlier  scholastics  (like  Anselm,  Ber- 
nard, and  John  of  Salisbury),  or  even  with 
Abaelard,  these  difficulties  had  not  occurred  be- 
cause, in  the  main,  the  basis  of  their  thought,  so 
far  as  it  was  philosophical,  was  Platonic,  or  at 
least  Neo-Platonic.  They  had  based  themselves 
mostly    upon    St.    Augustine,    who    was    imbued 

167 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

with  Platonism,  while  many  of  the  treatises 
which  had  come  to  them  from  the  Arabs  with 
the  name  of  Aristotle,  like  the  Secretum  Sec- 
retorum,  or  the  Liber  de  Causis,  were  really 
Neo-Platonic  works.  Now  Christianity  had  al- 
ready been  largely  influenced  by  Neo-Platonic 
thought  from  the  very  beginning  in  the  Gospel 
of  John,  and  was  not,  therefore,  fundamentally 
disturbed  by  further  infusion  of  it. 

But  when  Archbishop  Raymond  of  Toledo, 
in  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  caused  the 
physical  and  metaphysical  works  of  Aristotle  to 
be  made  accessible  in  Latin  translations,  executed, 
as  we  have  seen,  by  Dominic  Gundisalvi  (pos- 
sibly assisted  by  his  Jewish  associate,  Johannes 
Hispalenis)  and  by  Gerard  of  Cremona,  the 
same  problems  necessarily  arose  which  had  en- 
gaged the  attention  of  Maimonides.^  It  can 
therefore  be  easily  understood  how  eagerly  his 
aid  was  invoked  by  the  great  scholastics  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  who  were  puzzled  by  the  same 
problems  and  had  reached  the  same  crisis  in  their 
line  of  thought. 

*The  logical  and  rhetorical  works  had  already  been  made 
accessible  in  Latin  by  Boethius,  and  formed  the  basis  of  the 
Quadrivium.  See  H.  O.  Taylor,  The  MedicEval  Mind,  chapter 
34,  Methods  of  Scholasticism. 

108 


INFLUENCE    OF   JEWISH    THOUGHT 

But  before  dealing  in  such  detail  as  our  space 
permits  with  the  manner  in  which  the  Christian 
scholastics  adopted  the  solution  of  the  Jewish 
theologian,  a  discussion  would  be  in  order  of 
the  contrasting  influence  of  Solomon  ibn  Gabirol 
upon  the  same  thinkers,  which  forms  one  of  the 
most  curious  episodes  in  the  history  of  thought. 
He  is  quoted  by  all  of  the  four  greater  scholas- 
tics of  the  thirteenth  century  mentioned  above 
under  the  name  of  Avicebron,  Avicebrom,  or 
Avicebrol.  None  of  them,  however,  knew  that 
he  was  a  Jew;  indeed,  William  of  Auvergne 
argues  rather  elaborately  that,  though  an  Arab, 
he  must  have  been  a  Christian,  because  his  views 
about  the  Will  of  God  correspond  so  closely  to 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Word  or  Logos. ^ 
When  Jourdain  published  his  researches  upon  the 
Latin  translations  of  Aristotle,  he  came  across 
these  and  similar  references  to  Avicebron's  work, 
Fons  Vita,  and  declared  that  the  scholasticism  of 
the  thirteenth  century  could  not  be  properly  under- 
stood without  taking  into  account  the  influence  of 
this  work.^  Almost  immediately  afterward  Salomon 

*  De  Universo  I,  xxv,  quoted  by  Guttmann,  Scholastik,  p.  26, 
Note  2. 
"  Recherches,  second  edition,  18+3,  p.  197,  Note. 
169 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Munk  discovered  a  Hebrew  abridgment  derived 
from  the  original  Arabic  of  the  Fons  Vita  and  at- 
tributed to  Solomon  ibn  Gabirol,  previously  known 
as  a  liturgical  poet.  The  discovery  made  a  great 
sensation  in  its  day;  Ritter,  the  historian  of 
philosophy,  who  had  previously  denied  to  Jews 
any  originality  in  the  history  of  thought,  with- 
drew his  allegation  owing  to  the  independence  of 
Ibn  Gabirol  and  the  influence  of  his  novelties. 
The  chief  of  these  was  his  assertion  of  a  material 
substratum  to  spiritual  beings^  (intelligences  have 
matter  as  well  as  form),  and  consequently  that 
the  essence  of  the  Divine  Nature  was  in  will 
rather  than  in  thought."  Now  the  former  view, 
that  not  alone  corporeal  but  spiritual  substances 
have  both  matter  and  form,  is  one  of  the  chief 
points  of  difference  between  the  Franciscan  and 
the  Dominican  scholastics,  Alexander  of  Hales 
and  Duns  Scotus  agreeing  with  Avicebron  (from 
whom  they  derived  the  doctrine)  as  against  Al- 
bertus   Magnus   and   Thomas  Aquinas.      So   also 

'  It  will  be  remembered  that  Spinoza  was  expelled  from  the 
Synagogue  because  even  in  youth  he  held  that  there  was  a  ma- 
terial  substratum  to  God. 

"  It  is  curious  to  compare  the  insistence  upon  the  Will  to  Live 
and  the  Will  to  Power  of  Schopenhauer  and  Nietzsche  in  the 
post-Kantian  philosophy. 

170 


INFLUENCE    OF    JEWISH    THOUGHT 

with  regard  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Will, 
William  of  Auvergne  accepts  it  in  its  main  fea- 
tures, speaking,  in  consequence,  of  Avicebron  as 
"unique  and  the  most  noble  of  all  philosophers,"  ^ 
whereas  Albertus  Magnus  opposes  Avicebron  sys- 
tematically because  radically  opposed  to  Aristotel- 
ianism.  Dr.  Joel  accordingly  contended  that  the 
introduction  of  Avicebron's  novel  views  was  the 
special  ferment  in  the  scholasticism  of  the  thir- 
teenth century  which  determined  the  lines  of  its 
development.  This  has  been  denied  by  Witt- 
mann,"  and  seemingly  with  justice ;  his  influence 
was  more  by  way  of  evoking  opposition  than  by 
compelling  imitation. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  scarcely  possible  to 
exaggerate  the  influence  of  Maimonides  upon  the 
greater  scholastics  on  some  of  the  most  vital 
points  of  what  may  be  termed  their  natural 
theology.  It  was  Alexander  of  Hales  who  first 
introduced  Aristotelianism,  as  represented  by  the 
Arabic  commentaries,  especially  of  Avicenna,  into 
Christian  theology,  which  he  began  to  systematize 
in  the  form  of  a  Stimma.     Now  the  most  strik- 

^  De  Trinitatce,  xii. 

'  Wittmann,    Die   Stellung   des   heil.     Thomas   v.   Aquin   zu 
Avencebrol,  Miinster,  1900. 

171 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

ing  contrast  between  the  Arabic  Aristotle  and  the 
Bible  Is  with  regard  to  the  creatio  exnihilo, 
given  in  Genesis  1-2.  This  was  a  problem  that 
had  already  been  dealt  with  most  minutely  by 
Maimonides,  who,  in  his  Guide,  discusses  and  re- 
futes the  arguments  in  favor  of  the  eternity  of 
the  world.  Now  it  is  remarkable  that  Alex- 
ander of  Hales,  Albertus  Magnus,  and  Thomas 
Aquinas,  all  utilize  this  summary  of  Maimonides 
and  adopt  his  arguments,  as  they  themselves 
acknowledge.  The  fact  is,  Judaism  and  Christian- 
ity had  both  met  with  the  same  difficulty  which 
again  confronts  them  to-day.  They  had  to  recon- 
cile the  doctrine  of  Evolution  with  that  of  Crea- 
tion. The  genius  of  Maimonides  enabled  both 
Church  and  Synagogue  to  overcome  or  evade  the 
opposition  and  retain  allegiance  to  the  Scriptures 
for  another  six  hundred  years. ^ 

So,  too,  the  introduction  of  Aristotelian  physics 
into  both  Jewish  and  Christian  thought  raised 
the  problems  both  of  the  divine  attributes  and 
of  divine  Providence.  The  play  of  forces  re- 
vealed by   physics  seemed  so   different   from   the 

^  It  is  again  a  Jewish  philosopher,  Henri  Bergson,  who  is 
nowadays  leading  the  forces  against  the  agnostic  tendencies  of 
evolution. 

172  ' 


INFLUENCE    OF    JEWISH    THOUGHT 

personal  Deity  revealed  by  the  Scriptures,  that 
the  Jewish  thinkers,  culminating  in  Maimonides, 
had  to  allow  that  we  could  only  know  the  ex- 
istence, not  the  essence,  of  the  Divine  Being,  and 
with  regard  to  His  attributes,  could  only  de- 
termine these  by  negation,  not  affirmation.  In 
these  views  he  is  followed,  one  might  almost  say 
slavishly,  by  the  greater  scholastics,  Albertus 
Magnus  and  Thomas  Aquinas.  The  Divine 
Cause  revealed  by  the  Aristotelian  philosophy 
was  something  other  than  the  loving  Father  re- 
vealed in  Scripture;  and  here  again  Maimonides, 
by  an  ingenious  distinction,  saved  the  face  of 
Scripture  by  claiming  individual  Providence  for 
man  alone,  whereas  in  the  super-lunary  world 
there  was  only  a  general  supervision.  In  this 
view  again  he  was  mostly  followed  by  Albertus 
and  Thomas,  though  with  modifications  by  the 
latter.  Christian  thinkers  were  also  influenced 
by  Maimonides's  views  on  angels  and  prophecy, 
perhaps  the  most  ingenious  of  his  speculations, 
though,  with  regard  to  the  former  topic,  both 
Albertus  Magnus  and  Thomas  Aquinas  denied 
that  the  angels  are  the  intelligences  emanating 
from  the  Divine  Nature. 

Thus  on  some  of  the  most  fundamental  prob- 
173 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

lems  of  theology  the  great  Christian  doctors  of 
scholasticism  were  content  to  derive  their  chief 
arguments  from  the  chief  Jewish  thinker  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Indeed  it  might  almost  be  con- 
cluded that  the  Church  had  added  to  her  Doc- 
tor Angelicus  and  her  Doctor  Magnificus  the 
Doctor  Perplexorum  of  the  Synagogue  who  had 
dealt  so  ably  with  some  of  the  main  problems 
that  confronted  her.  Of  course,  there  were  whole 
fields  of  Christian  theology  outside  the  purview 
of  Maimonides,  such  as  the  Trinity,  the  Virgin 
birth,  Original  Sin,  and  the  like,  but  on  all  the 
great  problems  of  God's  nature  and  providence, 
and  His  creation.  Christian  scholasticism  was 
content  to  adopt  the  views  of  Moses  ben 
Maimon.^ 

Even  greater  influence,  though  in  a  more  re- 
stricted sphere,  was  exercised  by  another  move- 
ment in  Jewish  thought,  which  cam.e  to  a  head 
in   the   thirteenth   century   and    is   knov/n   as   the 

^  For  details,  reference  may  be  given  to  the  works  of  Gutt- 
mann  mentioned  above,  or  his  summary  account,  Der  Einjluss 
der  maimonidischen  Philosophie  auf  das  christliche  Abendland, 
in  the  first  volume  of  the  work  on  Maimonides,  published  by 
the  Gesellschaft  zur  Foerderung  der  Wissenschaft  des  Juden- 
tums,  Leipsig,  1908.  The  main  points  are  also  given  in  the 
monograph  by  Louis-Germain  Levy  on  Maimonides,  in  the  series 
Les  Grands  Philosophes,  Paris,  1911,  pp.  261-17. 

174 


INFLUENCE    OF    JEWISH    THOUGHT 

Kabbalah.  This  combined  in  Itself  all  the  mystic 
elements  of  the  cultures  through  which  Judaism 
had  passed — the  ecstasies  of  the  Bible  theoph- 
anies,  the  Neo-Platonism  of  Alexandria,  and  the 
Sufism  of  the  Arabs ;  and  in  some  of  its  later 
developments  it  is  not  above  the  suspicion  of 
having  been  touched  by  the  more  mystical  as- 
pects of  Christianity.  Its  chief  monument,  the 
Zohar,  was  probably  put  together  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  but  contains  traces  of  much  earlier  strains 
of  mystical  doctrine.  It  attracted  the  attention 
of  men  like  Raymond  Lully,  Pico  de  la  Miran- 
dola,  and  traces  of  it  are  even  to  be  found  in 
Dante.  But  its  chief  effect  upon  European 
thought  was  in  the  period  of  the  Reformation 
when  it  served  to  supply  to  Protestantism  that 
mystical  element  which  had  been  the  chief  attrac- 
tion in  the  older  forms  of  faith.  A.  Stoeckl,  in 
his  voluminous  History  of  Mediaeval  Philosophy, 
devoted  a  whole  section  to  the  analysis  of  Kab- 
balistic  Theosophy.^  In  combination  with  a  re- 
vival of  Pythagoreanism  it  appealed  to  Reuchlin 

*  Vol.  iii,  394-608.  He  repeats  these  affiliations  in  his  later  and 
shorter  Lehrbuch  zur  Gesch.  d.  Philosophie.  It  should  be 
added,  however,  that  he  is  far  from  convincing  as  to  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Kabbalah  on  Luther. 

175 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

and  Cornelius  Agrippa;  In  connection  with  the 
new  study  of  Nature  It  affected  Paracelsus, 
Cardan,  Von  Helmont,  and  Robert  Fludd,  as 
well  as,  one  may  add,  the  rest  of  the  Cambridge 
Platonlsts;  so  far  as  Luther  was  philosophical, 
he  derived  his  philosophy  from  the  Kabbalah, 
with  a  touch  of  gnosticism  and  a  coloring  of 
Manlchalsm,  and  In  this  he  was  followed  by 
Melancthon.  The  great  German  mystics,  like 
Welgel  and  Jakob  Boehme,  were  also  kabballstic 
in  general  outline.  Just  as  Catholicism  had 
sought  to  temper  the  divine  mysteries  by  the 
rationalism  of  Maimonides,  so  Protestantism,  In 
its  turn,  modified  Its  rationalistic  tendencies  by  a 
resort  to  the  mysticism  of  the  Kabbalah. 

Meanwhile,  within  the  ranks  of  Judaism  itself, 
the  lines  of  thought  developed  by  Maimonides 
were  further  expanded  In  a  direction  which  pro- 
duced a  third  system  of  Jewish  thought,  which 
had  ultimately  even  greater  effects  upon  European 
speculation  than  either  Maimonides  or  the  Kab- 
balah. Levi  ben  Gerson,  whom  we  have  already 
met  with  as  the  inventor  of  the  Jacob's  Staff  and 
the  Camera  Obscura,  dared,  in  his  Wars  of  the 
Lord  (called  by  antagonists  Wars  Against  the 
Lord) ,  to  contend  for  the  eternity  of  the  world, 

176 


INFLUENCE    OF    JEWISH    THOUGHT 

against  which  Maimonides  had  argued  so 
strenuously.  He  also  held  that  only  the  in- 
tellectual side  of  men's  natures  lasted  on  beyond 
their  death,  deriving  this  view  probably  from 
Averroes,  upon  whose  works  he  wrote  com- 
mentaries. Against  his  views  there  came  a  pro- 
test by  Hasdai  Crescas,  who,  nevertheless,  held 
that  extension  was  one  of  the  attributes  of  the 
Divine;  he  denied  final  causes,  and  contended  for 
a  strict  determinism.  These  views,  with  much 
derived  from  the  Kabbalah  and  even  from  Mai- 
monides, were  cast  into  a  Cartesian  mould  by 
Baruch  Spinoza,  who  sums  up  the  whole  line  of 
Jewish  thought,  into  which  he  incorporated  a 
few  hints  from  Bruno,  Hobbes,  and  Descartes.^ 
His  influence  upon  European  speculation  has 
been  simply  enormous,  even  up  to  the  present  day. 
Through  personal  intercourse  with  Leibniz  in  the 
last  year  of  his  life,"  he  gave  the  determining  in- 
fluence to  that  thinker's  view,  which  was  destined 
to  dominate  the  whole  of  the  eighteenth  century 
philosophy.       After    Kant,    the    chief    epigonoi, 

^  For  a  detailed  account  of  Spinoza's  indebtedness  to  his 
Jewish  predecessors  I  may  perhaps  refer  to  my  article  on  him 
in  the  Jeavis/i  Encyclopedia,  xi,  517-18. 

''See  L.  Stein,  Leibnitz  und  Spinoza,  Berlin,  1890;  and  com- 
pare B.  Russell,  Philosophy  of  Leibniz,  Cambridge,  1900,  p.  5. 

177 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel,  were  mainly  oc- 
cupied in  grafting  the  pantheism  of  Spinoza  on 
the  epistemology  of  Kant;  Hegel  even  declared 
that  to  be  a  philosopher  one  must  first  be  a 
Spinozist.  His  influence  was  even  as  great  among 
the  less  formal  thinkers,  like  Lessing,  Goethe, 
Schleiermacher,  as  well  as  among  poets  and 
essayists,  like  Shelley,  Byron,  Coleridge,  Auerbach, 
Matthew  Arnold,  Froude,  George  Eliot,  and 
Renan. 

Spinoza's  influence  has  even  extended  to  the 
fundamental  principles  of  contemporary  science, 
which,  by  a  happy  divination,  he  anticipated  in 
many  respects  as  regards  the  conservation  of 
energy,  the  importance  of  conation  as  the  essence 
of  evolution,  and  the  aspect  of  the  universe  as 
a  combination  of  configurations  and  motions/ 
Accordingly,  natural  philosophers  like  Herbert 
Spencer,  Haeckel,  and  Ostwald  have  practically 
adopted  Spinoza  as  the  basis  of  their  thinking. 
It  is  a  curious  coincidence  that  the  main  oppo- 
sition  to   this   deterministic   and   pantheistic  view 

^  Even  the  infinity  of  attributes,  one  of  the  most  startling 
points  in  Spinoza's  system,  may  be  regarded  as  a  premonition 
of  the  recognition  by  modern  mathematicians  of  the  infinity  of 
non-Euclidean  spaces. 

178 


INFLUENCE    OF    JEWISH    THOUGHT 

of  the  universe  nowadays  comes  from  the 
"creative  evolution"  of  another  Jewish  thinker, 
Henri  Bergson. 

But  quite  apart  from  the  direct  influence  on 
European  thought  and  thinkers  of  the  three  great 
systems  of  Maimonides,  the  Kabbalah,  and 
Spinoza,  the  mere  existence  and  sufferings  of  a 
body  of  men,  like  the  Jews,  daring  to  differ  from 
the  Christian  consensus  must  have  made  a  deep 
impression  upon  the  imagination  of  mediaeval 
Europe.  These  men  were  risking  death,  and, 
what  was  more,  were  choosing  degraded  and 
segregated  lives  solely  for  the  sake  of  what  they 
conceived  to  be  the  truth.  Men  like  Roger 
Bacon,  LuUy,  Bruno,  and  Servetus  must  have 
been  supported,  in  their  struggle  with  the  Church, 
by  the  consciousness  that  they  were  not  risking 
more  than  the  Jewish  thinkers  with  whom  each 
of  them  was,  at  some  time  in  his  life,  acquainted. 
In  this  sense  the  Jews,  by  their  very  existence, 
were  a  standing  incitement  to  freedom  of  thought, 
though  within  their  own  circles  they  were  often 
as  intolerant  as  their  Christian  neighbors. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  Averroism  of 
the  school  of  Padua,  which  brought  the  scep- 
ticism   of    the    Renaissance    to    its    height    in    the 

179 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

denial  of  immortality  by  Pomponati,  was  mainly 
due  to  the  activity  of  Jewish  translators  into  Latin 
of  the  Hebrew  versions  of  Averroes.  This  is  not 
the  sole  contribution  of  Jews  to  Renaissance 
thought.  The  Humanists,  like  Poggio  Brac- 
ciolati,  and  Giannozzo  Mannetti,  his  son  Agnolo, 
and  Pico  de  la  Mirandola,  devoted  almost  as 
much  attention  to  Hebrew  learning  as  to  Greek/ 
and  we  have  already  seen  how  the  last-named 
utilized  the  Kabbalah,  which  probably  also  had 
its  influence  on  Giordano  Bruno.  But  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Renaissance  upon  the  Jews  is  even 
more  marked  than  their  influence  upon  the 
Renaissance.  Giuda  Romano  even  adopted 
scholasticism,  while  his  cousin  Manoello,  a  friend 
of  Dante,  wrote  a  kind  of  Divine  Comedy  in 
Hebrew,  besides  bewailing  Dante's  death  in  an 
Italian  sonnet.  Messer  Leon,  in  his  rhetoric, 
Nofet  Zufim,  used  Quintilian  and  Cicero  as 
models,  and  it  is  characteristic  that  this  work,  the 
only  one  of  a  living  author  printed  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  was  of  a  distinctly  humanistic  character. 
But  perhaps  the  most  characteristic  product  of 
this  Jewish  Renaissance,  as  we  may  call  it,  was 
the  Dialoghi  di  Amove  of  Don  Judah  Abarbanel, 

^  See  Burckhardt,  Civilization  of  the  Renaissance,  ii,  pp.  197-9. 
180 


INFLUENCE    OF    JEWISH    THOUGHT 

known  as  Messer  Leone  Hebreo,  which  appeared 
In  Venice,  1535,  and  went  through  numerous 
editions,  and  was  translated  into  Latin,  French, 
and  Spanish.  What  we  call  Platonic  love  was 
really  derived  from  this  curious  treatise  of 
Abarbanel,  which  is  frequently  quoted  and  re- 
ferred to  by  Burton  in  his  Anatomy  of  Melan- 
choly. 

This  Influence  of  the  Renaissance  on  the  Jews 
is  far  from  isolated  as  an  instance  of  the  way  in 
which  European  movements  affected  European 
Jews  quite  throughout  the  Middle  Ages.  This  is 
shown  most  conspicuously  in  their  translating 
activity,  especially  in  what  I  have  called  above 
their  "terminal"  translations,  which  were  not  used 
to  pass  on  knowledge  to  the  Christian  world  and 
went  no  further  than  the  Hebrew.  In  Stein- 
schneider's  work  on  Jewish  translations  he  has, 
in  each  of  the  four  sections  (philosophy,  mathe- 
matics, medicine,  and  miscellaneous)  a  chapter 
devoted  to  the  Christians  whose  works  have  been 
translated  into  Hebrew,  and  in  mathematics  and 
medicine  these  outnumber  those  translated  from 
the  Arabic.  Albertus  Magnus,  Duns  Scotus, 
Michael  Scot,  Raymond  Lully,  Thomas  Aquinas, 
among  philosophers;   Sacrobosco   and   Reglomon- 

181 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

tanus,  among  mathematicians;  Arnold  di  Villa- 
nova,  Constantinus  Afer,  Julius  of  Salerno, 
Maurus  of  Salerno,  Roger  and  Roland  of  Parma, 
and  Saladin  of  Salerno,  in  medicine;  besides  many 
others,  even  less  familiar,  were  all  rendered  ac- 
cessible to  the  mediaeval  Jews  in  Hebrew  trans- 
lations. Even  some  of  the  Arthurian  romances 
and  Marie  de  France's  fables  were  adapted  and 
made  current  among  the  Jews;  for  example,  the 
romance  of  Sir  Bevis  of  Hamton  was  current 
among  the  German  Jew^s  under  the  title  of 
Bovobiich.  In  their  more  original  works  they 
often  showed  European,  as  well  as  Arabic,  in- 
fluences; if  their  poetry  was  mainly  liturgical, 
there  was  much  of  it  of  a  secular  nature,  and  oc- 
casionally they  wrote  in  the  vernaculars  of  their 
native  country;  there  is  even  a  Jewish  Min- 
nesinger, Siisskind  von  Trimberg,  unknown  to 
Richard  Wagner  and  Mr.  Chamberlain.  Through 
the  intimate  relations  of  Hebrew  and  Arabic  they 
were  fortunately  able  to  make  their  grammatical 
studies  the  beginnings  of  comparative  philology.^ 
The  very  polemics  and  disputations  which  they 
carried  on  with  Muslims  and  Christians  made  it 

^  A.  H.  Sayce,  Treatise  on  Comparative  Philology. 
182 


INFLUENCE    OF    JEWISH    THOUGHT 

necessary  for  them  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the 
rival  religions,  and  it  is  recognized  that  the 
sketches  made  of  them  in  Judah  ha-Levi's  al- 
Khazari  are  models  of  fairness  and  impartiality. 
In  short,  there  was  a  natural  and  human  give-and- 
take  in  the  intellectual  relations  of  European  Jews 
and  Christians. 

Of  course  it  would  be  possible  to  exaggerate 
both  sides  of  these  movements  and  claim,  with 
Lecky  and  Draper,  that  all  independent  thinking 
and  research  in  mediaeval  Europe  was  due  to  the 
impact  of  Arabic  thought  brought  about  by  Jew- 
ish intermediation.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  Jews 
may  be  regarded,  as  by  Mr.  Chamberlain  and 
others,  as  merely  encamped  in  Europe,  like 
the  Turks,  without  any  intellectual  communion 
with  the  rest  of  their  fellow-countrymen.  The 
latter  position  is  simply  gratuitously  insolent  and 
is  sufficiently  refuted  by  the  innumerable  in- 
stances of  Jewish  influence  upon  European  move- 
ments given  in  the  present  and  the  preceding 
chapters.  It  is,  perhaps,  more  necessary  to 
moderate  the  excessive  claims  that  may  be  made 
that  mediaeval  thought  and  science  were  domi- 
nated by  Jewish  influence.  It  has  been  cus- 
tomary, in  this  connection,  to  reckon  in  the  whole 

183 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

translating  activity  of  mediasval  Jews,  which  cer- 
tainly produces  a  very  impressive  effect,  but,  by 
making  a  careful  distinction,  as  I  have  done,  be- 
tween "terminals"  and  "junctions,"  we  see  that 
the  former  can  only  be  adduced  to  prove,  not  the 
influence  of  Jews  upon  Europe,  but  rather  the 
influence  of  both  Arabia  and  Europe  upon  the 
Jews.  We  have,  accordingly,  seen  that  the  main 
"junctions,"  which  Jews  can  claim  as  passing  on 
Arabic  knowledge  to  the  schools  of  Europe,  were 
through  John  of  Seville  in  the  twelfth  century, 
Andrew,  Michael  Scot's  dragoman,  in  the 
twelfth  century,  and  the  translators  of  Averroes 
in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  Elia  del 
Medigo,  Jacob  Mantino,  and  Abraham  de  Balmes. 
The  Averroism  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  neither 
as  important  as  Renan  claimed,  nor  was  it  due 
entirely  to  the  Jews. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  seen  that  the  in- 
troduction of  Indian  arithmetic  and  geometry  into 
Europe  was  due  to  John  of  Seville  and  Abraham 
bar  Hiyya.  It  was  even  shown  to  be  probable 
that  the  Jew  was  the  medium  through  which  the 
Indian  numerals  were  first  brought  to  the  Arabic 
world,  along  with  Indian  fables  and  Indian  chess. 
Practically  all  the  astronomical  tables  which  were 

184 


INFLUENCE    OF    JEWISH    THOUGHT 

used  by  astronomers,  astrologers,  map-makers, 
and  mariners  (including  Columbus  in  the  last- 
named)  were  made  by  Jews,  who  also  contributed 
some  of  the  more  important  Portulani  by  which 
the  seamen  steered.  So,  too,  the  chief  instru- 
ments used  for  taking  observations  on  board,  the 
Jacob's  Staff  and  the  new  quadrant,  were  due  to 
Levi  ben  Gerson  and  Jacob  ben  Makir;  to  the 
former  we  have  been  enabled  to  trace  the  first 
description,  if  not  the  invention,  of  the  Camera 
Obscura.  As  regards  medical  theory,  there  is 
little  that  can  be  directly  traced  to  Jews  except 
through  the  translations  of  Isaac  Israeli  on 
Fever  and  of  Maimonides  on  Dietetics;  their  help 
in  founding  the  schools  of  Salerno  and  Mont- 
pellier  still  remains  to  be  proven. 

But  if  we  have  seen  reason  to  moderate  the 
claims  made  for  Jews  as  intermediaries  between 
Islam  and  Christendom  in  science  and  philos- 
ophy, our  inquiries  have  rather  raised  than  les- 
sened the  debt  which  Christian  theology  owes 
to  independent  Jewish  thinkers  like  Ibn  Gabirol, 
Maimonides,  the  Masters  of  the  Kabbalah,  and 
Spinoza.  While  it  would  be  going  too  far  to 
state,  with  some  Jewish  inquirers,  that  Avicebron 
(Ibn  Gabirol)   was  the  ferment  of  the  thirteenth 

185 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

century  scholasticism,  his  original  thought  had  a 
certain  influence  on  the  greater  scholastics,  and  it 
is  scarcely  possible  to  exaggerate  the  influence  of 
Maimonides  on  their  views  of  Creation,  Provi- 
dence, and  Prophecy.  He  had  had  to  deal  with 
the  same  problems  as  Alexander  of  Hales,  Al- 
bertus  Magnus,  and  Thomas  Aquinas,  earlier 
than  they,  and  it  was  to  be  expected  that  they 
should  adopt  his  solutions  about  points  of  natural 
theology  which  were  entirely  common  to  the 
two  faiths.  If  Stoeckl,  the  historian  of  mediaeval 
philosophy,  is  to  be  believed,  the  whole  of 
Reformation  theology  was  permeated  by  kab- 
balistic  influences,  and  it  is  notorious  that  modern 
thought  is  equally  permeated  by  Spinozism,  which, 
in  a  measure,  sums  up  the  whole  development  of 
Jewish  metaphysics  during  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  above  contributions  constitute  consider- 
able factors  in  the  making  of  mediaeval  Europe. 
But  it  would  be  misleading  to  exaggerate  their 
extent.  Owing  to  their  careful  segregation,  there 
were  whole  spheres  of  mediaeval  life  in  which 
Jews  were  prevented  from  participating.  Even 
in  the  pagan  empire  they  had,  by  their  own 
choice,  been  exempted  from  bearing  arms,  and 
thus  in  the  Holy   Roman   empire  they  were  out- 

186 


INFLUENCE    OF    JEWISH    THOUGHT 

side  the  whole  system  of  feudalism  and  chivalry. 
European  art  and  music  were  entirely  religious, 
that  is,  Christian,  and  here  again  Jews  were 
excluded  from  taking  any  part,  though  there  was 
probably  some  influence  of  Synagogue  cantilla- 
tion  on  the  Gregorian  chants.  Though  they 
spoke  the  vernaculars,  they  had  little  inducement 
to  write  in  these  languages  for  purely  literary 
purposes,  and  it  was  obviously  impossible  for 
them  to  share  in  the  glories  of  the  great  ca- 
thedrals raised  to  the  honor  of  the  saints  of  the 
Christian  Church.  Even  in  the  sphere  of  thought 
they  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  cathedral  schools 
and  university  colleges  that  monopolized  the 
higher  education  of  mediaeval  Europe. 

No,  the  Jews  took  their  part  in  the  European 
culture  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  that  part  was 
restricted  by  their  special  relations  to  the  Church- 
State.  In  some  directions,  as  in  mathematics  and 
astronomy,  in  theoretical  navigation,  and  natural 
theology,  and  in  the  earlier  phases  of  intermedia- 
tion between  East  and  West,  they  did  even  more 
than  their  fair  share  as  compared  with  other 
races  and  nations.  It  is  doubtful,  for  example, 
whether  mediaeval  England  or  Germany  could 
contribute  such  a  list  of  mathematicians  and  as- 

187 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

tronomers  up  to  the  year  1500  as  is  given  in  Miss 
Goldberg's  index  to  Steinschneider's  Mathematik 
bet  den  Juden,  running  to  252  names,  though 
mediaeval  Englishmen  were  probably  five  times, 
and  mediaeval  Germans  ten  times,  as  numerous 
as  the  European  Jews  of  the  Middle  Ages.^  If 
they  contributed  nothing  to  art,  architecture,  and 
literature,  if  they  were  outside  the  field  of  arms, 
this  was  mainly  due  to  their  exclusion  from  any 
sphere  within  the  influence  of  the  Church.  Using 
the  vernaculars  of  their  native  countries,  they 
could  not  avoid  being  assimilated  in  the  folk- 
ways of  their  fellow-countrymen,  even  with  re- 
gard to  their  superstitions;  but  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  they  gave  as  good  as  they  took,  at 
any  rate  in  the  intellectual  sphere. 

They  were  enabled  to  do  these  services  to 
Europe  by  their  peculiar  position  in  the 
State  systems  of  Islam  and  Christendom,  which 
enabled  them  to  be  an  intermediary  between 
them.  It  was  because  they  were  intermediaries 
in  commerce  that  they  were  enabled  to  be  inter- 

^  On  the  other  hand,  Jews  cannot  claim  as  many  thinkers  of 
the  importance  of  Alcuin,  John  Scotus,  Anselm,  John  of  Salis- 
bury, Alexander  of  Hales,  Roger  Bacon,  Duns  Scotus,  and 
Occam;  htre  the  qualitative  superioritA'  seems  to  be  on  the  side 
of  the  Englishman. 

188 


INFLUENCE    OF    JEWISH    THOUGHT 

medlaries  in  thought,  and  we  have  still  to  ascer- 
tain, in  some  detail,  the  economic  role  played  by 
the  intermediary  Jews  in  Europe,  partly  by  their 
control  of  the  trade  routes  between  East  and 
West,  and  partly  by  the  position  forced  upon 
them  by  the  Church  attitude  toward  capitalism, 
stigmatized  as  "usury."  This  will  form  the  sub- 
ject of  our  next  chapter. 


189 


CHAPTER    VI 

Jews  and   Commerce 

It  is  usually  assumed  that  there  is  a  natural 
tendency  in  the  Jewish  character  toward  com- 
merce. This  was  certainly  not  the  case  in  Bible 
times.  The  Israelites,  perched  up  on  highlands, 
far  from  the  two  main  caravan  routes,  from 
Damascus  to  Egypt,  had  little  occasion  to  engage 
in  traffic.  Each  household  produced  all  the  food, 
clothing,  timber,  and  tools  it  needed,  and  only 
for  a  few  luxuries  did  it  have  resort  to  "wander- 
ers," known  invariably  as  foreigners — Canaanites,^ 
Midianites,^  and  Ishmaelites.^  The  mere  fact 
that  there  was  no  coined  money  used  in  Israel 
until  the  time  of  the  Maccabees  would  be  alone 
sufficient  to  prove  how  little  trade  was  current 
among  the  Israelites.  How  little  popular  it 
was,  even  in  the  times  of  the  Mishnah  (first  two 
centuries,  C.E.),  is  shown  in  the  maxims,  "Have 

'  Job  40,  30;  Proverbs  31,  24. 
-  Genesis  37,  28. 
'Genesis  37,  25. 

190 


JEWS    AND    COMMERCE 

little  business";^  "The  less  trading,  the  more 
Torah."  "  The  ideal  of  the  Israelite  was  to  re- 
pose in  the  shade  of  his  own  fig-tree,  but  not  to 
have  a  large  number  of  figs  to  trade  with. 
Josephus  gives  the  reason :  "We  do  not  dwell 
in  a  land  by  the  sea  and  do  not  therefore  in- 
dulge in  commerce  either  by  sea  or  otherwise."  ^ 
It  is  to  the  dispersion  and  wanderings  of  the 
Jews  that  we  can  trace  the  growth  of  a  taste  or 
addiction  to  trading  as  a  means  of  livelihood.  It 
is  indeed  extraordinary  how  widespread  the  Jew- 
ish communities  had  become  by  the  end  of  the 
first  century.*  They  were  the  only  body  of  men 
in  the  Roman  empire  who  could  retain  their 
communion  and  identity,  while  so  widely  dis- 
persed, because  of  their  religion,  which  had  no 
trace  of  local  restriction,  like  all  the  other  cults 
of  antiquity.  A  Jew  could  worship  God  in  An- 
tioch,  Alexandria,  or  Rome,  whereas  an  Athenian 
would    feel    himself    debarred    from    communion 

'  Abot  4,  14. 

-Ibid.,  6,  6. 

^  Contra  Ap'tonem,  i,  12. 

*  The  latest  enumeration  is  that  given  by  J.  Juster,  Les  Juifs 
dans  I'Empire  romain,  i,  pp.  180-209,  mainly  from  recently  dis- 
covered inscriptions.  Less  complete  accounts  in  Schiirer  and  T. 
Reinach  s.v.  "Diaspora"  in  Jevfish  Encyclopedia,  iv,  561-2. 

191 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

with  Athena  unless  he  resided  within  an  easy  ac- 
cess of  the  Acropolis,  or  of  a  similar  fane  in  one 
of  the  Athenian  colonies.  Yet  most  Jews  re- 
tained the  practice  of  v^isiting  the  Temple,  en- 
joined by  the  Law,  and  this  would  lead  to  just 
those  wandering  tendencies  which,  in  biblical 
times,  they  had  associated  with  the  alien  mer- 
chant. Their  concentration,  too,  when  sold  as 
slaves,  in  the  imperial  towns  would  tend  to  di- 
vorce them,  for  the  most  part,  from  the  pastoral 
and  agricultural  life  to  which  they  had  hitherto 
been  accustomed,  and  we  accordingly  find  them 
in  the  Roman  empire  also  artisans  and  small 
traders  as  well  as  farmers  and  colonists. 

Except,  however,  in  Egypt,  where  they  are 
found  as  important  merchants  in  Alexandria,  al- 
most from  the  foundation  of  the  city,  there  is  no 
evidence  of  any  exclusive  or  predominant  addic- 
tion to  commerce  on  the  part  of  Jews  till  the  rise 
of  Islam  in  the  sev^enth  century.  Still  less  is  there 
any  evidence  before  that  time  of  a  tendency 
toward  general  trading  for  speculative  purposes; 
previously  we  find  them  restricting  their  commer- 
cial activity  to  one  particular  line  of  goods.  The 
earliest  instance  of  such  general  trading  I  find  in 
connection  with  one  of  the  seven  wonders  of  the 

192 


JEWS   AND    COMMERCE 

world. ^  When  the  Colossus  of  Rhodes  fell  in 
653  it  was  a  Jewish  merchant  of  Emessa  who 
purchased  the  debris  and  carried  it  off  on  nine 
hundred  camels.^ 

Though  in  the  early  days  of  Islam  the  motive 
for  conquest  appears  to  have  been,  according  to 
modern  research,  rather  tribute  than  conv^ersion, 
as  soon  as  the  various  Emirates  were  organized, 
the  greatest  pressure  was  brought  to  bear  upon 
the  non-faithful  to  induce  them  to  accept  Islam. 
It  is  true  that  Christians  (and  "Sabaeans"),  as 
well  as  Jews,  as  "Peopb  with  Scriptures,"  were 
also  permitted  to  reside  among  Muslim  peoples, 
though  with  certain  disabilities.  But  Jews  had 
been  used  to  similar  restrictions  previously, 
whereas  Christians  found  it  hard  to  accept  the 
yoke  of  the  Muslim.  Any  movement  backward 
and  forward  of  Christians  from  the  Muslim 
states  would  naturally  be  regarded  with  suspicion 
when  there  was  practically  a  perpetual  state  of 
war  between  the  countries  of  the  Crescent  and 
the  Cross.  Besides,  the  Christians  of  the  East 
were  Nestorians,  Jacobites,  or  Orthodox,  and  re- 
garded  as  heretics   by   those   of   the   West.      In 

'  See  J.  Juster,  op.  cit.  ii,  294-309. 
^  Paulus  Diaconus,  656. 

193 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Christian  lands  the  peaceful  presence  of  a  Mu- 
hammedan  was  scarcely  conceivable  till  the  tide 
of  Spanish  conquest  brought  the  Moriscos  under 
Christian  domination.  Accordingly,  the  Jew  was 
the  only  person  Vvho  could  pass  freely  from  the 
Muslim  to  the  Christian  sphere  of  influence. 
Thus  in  less  than  a  couple  of  centuries  after  the 
Hegira  we  find  him  practically  monopolizing  the 
trade  between  the  two  spheres. 

In  847  the  Postmaster-General  of  the  Caliphate 
of  Bagdad,  named  Ibn  Khordadhbeh,  wrote,  in  his 
Book  of  Ways,^  a  full  description  of  the  routes 
taken  by  such  Jewish  intermediaries;  his  account, 
as  we  shall  see,  gives  the  key  to  the  whole  eco- 
nomic history  of  the  Jews  in  the  Middle  Ages,, 
and  therefore  deserves  to  be  given  here  in  its  en- 
tirety.^ 

"routes    of    the    JEWISH    MERCHANTS    CALLED 
RADANITES 

These  merchants  speak  Arabic,  Persian,  Ro- 
man (Greek),  the  language  of  the  Franks,  An- 
dalusians,   and   Slavs.      They   journey   from   west 

'  De  Goeje's  edition  in  Bibl.  Geogr.  Arab.,  vi,  114. 
^  Prof.   I.   Friedlaender   has   been   good    enough   to   check  my 
translation  and  supplement  my  information  in  numerous  ways. 

194 


JEWS    AND    COMMERCE 

to  east,  from  east  to  west,  partly  on  land,  partly 
by  sea.  They  transport  from  the  west  eunuchs, 
female  and  male  slav^es,  silk,  castor,  marten  and 
other  furs,  and  swords.  They  take  ship  in  the 
land  of  the  Franks,  on  the  Western  Sea,  and 
steer  for  Farama  (Pelusium).  There  they  load 
their  goods  on  the  backs  of  camels  and  go  by 
land  to  Kolzum  (Suez)  in  five  days'  journey 
over  a  distance  of  twenty-five  parasangs.  They 
embark  in  the  East  Sea  (Red  Sea),  and  sail 
from  Kolzum  to  El-Jar  (port  of  Medina)  and 
Jeddah  (port  of  Mecca)  ;  then  they  go  to  Sind, 
India,  and  China.  On  their  return  they  carry 
back  musk,  aloes,  camphor,  cinnamon,  and  other 
products  of  the  Eastern  countries  to  Kolzum, 
and  bring  them  to  Farama,  where  they  again 
embark  on  the  Western  Sea.  Some  make  sail 
for  Constantinople  to  sell  their  goods  to  the 
Romans;  others  go  to  the  palace  of  the  king  of 
the  Franks  to  place  their  goods. 

Sometimes  these  Jew  merchants  prefer  to 
carry  their  goods  from  the  land  of  the  Franks 
in  the  Western  Sea,  making  for  Antioch  (at  the 
mouth  of  the  Orontes)  ;  thence  they  go  by  land 
to  Al-Jabia  (?),  where  they  arrive  after  three 
days'    march.      There   they   embark    on   the   Eu- 

195 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

phrates  for  Bagdad,  and  then  sail  down  the 
Tigris  to  al-Obolla.  From  al-Obolla  they  sail  for 
Oman,  Sind,  Hind,  and  China.  All  this  is  con- 
nected one  with  another. 

These  different  journeys  can  also  be  made  by 
land.  The  merchants  that  start  from  Spain  or 
France  go  to  Sous  al-Akza  (Morocco),  and  then 
to  Tangiers,  whence  they  march  to  Kairuwan  and 
the  capital  of  Egypt.  Thence  they  go  to  al- 
Ramla,  visit  Damascus,  al-Kufa,  Bagdad,  and 
Basrah,  cross  Ahwaz,  Fars,  Kirman,  Sind,  Hind, 
and  arrive  at  China.  Sometimes  they  likewise 
take  the  route  behind  Rome,  and,  passing  through 
the  country  of  the  Slavs,  arrive  at  Khamlij,  the 
capital  of  the  Khazars.  They  embark  on  the 
Jorjan  Sea,  arrive  at  Balkh,  betake  themselves 
from  there  across  the  Oxus,  and  continue  their 
journey  toward  the  Yourts  of  the  Toghozghor, 
and  from  there  to  China." 

It  will  be  observed  that  these  Jewish  merchants 
are  called  Radanites^;  and  one  of  the  languages 
with  which  they  are  credited  is  Persian,  so  that  it 
would  seem  that  their  headquarters  were  In 
Persia.     It  has  accordingly  been  determined  that 

*  From  Persian  rah  dan,  knowing  the  way, 
196 


JEWS    AND    COMMERCE 

their  headquarters  were  in  the  town  of  Rhaga/ 
near  Teheran  (the  Rhages  of  Tobit's  birthplace), 
which  was  in  the  ninth  century  the  commercial  me- 
tropoHs  of  Persia,  from  which  caravans  went  to 
Armenia,  Khorassan  and  Khazaria."  At  the  latter 
place  they  would  connect  with  the  Jewish  mer- 
chants who,  according  to  Ibrahim  ibn  Ya'kub.^ 
carried  wares  from  Byzantium  to  Prague  and 
there  exchanged  them  for  fur,  metals,  and  slaves. 
It  will  be  observed  that  all  the  routes  of 
these  "Radanites"  ended  in  China,  and  this 
is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  the  ritual  of  the 
Chinese  Jews  shows  clear  marks  of  Persian  in- 
fluence. We  know  that  they  suffered  in  the  sack 
of  Quinsay,  878/  A  little  later  Benjamin  of 
Tudela  refers  to  Jews  in  China,  and  there 
are  still  traces  of  them  at  Kaifung-fu,  and 
earlier  they  were  to  be  found  at  Kanfu  and  Hang- 
chau.  They  appear  to  have  arrived  there  very 
early,  perhaps  in  the  first   Christian  century,   re- 

^  V^hen  destroyed  by  Ghinkhiz  Khan  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
it  claimed  half  a  million  inhabitants  (Hammer,  Gold.  Horde, 
77).  Ibn  Fakih  (De  Goeje,  he,  cit.,  v,  270)  places  his  account 
of  the  Radanites  in  connection  with  al-Ray. 

"Ritter,  Asien,  vi,  i,  595. 

■*  Quoted  by  G.  Jacob,  Handelsart'ikel  der  Araber,  p.  9. 

*  Beazley,  Daivn. 

197 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

taining  certain  ceremonials  (chair  and  veil  of 
Moses),  which  have  disappeared  among  Jews  but 
are  referred  to  in  the  New  Testament.  We  ac- 
cordingly, in  nearly  contemporary  accounts,  find 
them  scattered  on  these  main  routes,  from  Arabia 
to  China,  at  Bokhara,  Khotan,  and  Samrakand, 
at  Kis  and  at  Cranganore,  at  Quilon  and 
Zayton/ 

The  character  of  the  goods  the  Radanites 
transported  from  East  to  West  also  deserves 
attention.  The  drugs,  perfumes,  and  condi- 
ments they  brought  to  Europe  could  not  be  ob- 
tained there,  though  the  last-named  were  abso- 
lutely essential  to  give  some  taste  to  the  salt 
meats  of  winter  and  the  salt  fish  of  Lent.  The 
musk  and  other  perfumes  were  equally  neces- 
sary to  overcome  the  stuffy  atmosphere  and  un- 
sanitary habits  of  the  mediaeval  castles.  It  is 
perhaps  worth  while  interpolating  here  an  ex- 
planation why  the  Jewish  Radanites,  who 
seemed  so  important  in  the  ninth  century,  left  so 
little  trace  of  their  influence  on  international  com- 
merce in  later  times.  Almost  immediately  after 
Ibn   Khordadhbeh  wrote   his   account  there  were 

'  The  date  of  the  brass  "Sasanarn"  giving  them  feudal  rights 
is  750. 

198 


JEWS    AND    COMMERCE 

riots  in  China  (878  C.E.)  against  foreign  mer- 
chants, which  would  for  a  time  put  an  end  to 
the  Radanlte  commerce.  In  the  next  century 
most  of  the  Slav  lands  where  these  Jewish  mer- 
chants obtained  their  slaves  were  Christianized 
and  thus  largely  excluded  from  the  slave  trade, 
while  the  same  century  saw  the  fall  of  Khazaria 
through  the  Varangians,  and  the  Radanlte  trade, 
through  the  close  connection  of  Rhaga  with  the 
Caspian  Sea,  evidently  depended  largely  upon 
the  favor  of  the  Jewish  kings  of  Khazaria. 
Toward  the  end  of  the  tenth  century  again  the 
Sammanides,  who  ruled  the  district  around  Khiva, 
the  gateway  to  Chinese  trade,  fell  before  the 
Tartars,  who  formed  henceforth  a  barrier  against 
Western  traders.  Finally,  the  tenth  century  saw 
the  rise  of  Venice,  which  took  the  place  of  the 
Radanites  in  the  Mediterranean  trade.  Through 
these  means  the  Radanites  lost  their  monopoly  of 
international  trade,  though  in  the  meantime  they 
had  amassed  that  wealth  in  gold  which  enabled 
them  to  become  the  bankers  of  Europe  when 
Europe  needed  money. 

In  exchange  for  these,  these  Jewish  merchants 
brought  chiefly  slaves  from  the  Frank  and  the 
Slav   lands,    and   even   before   the   rise   of    Islam 

199 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Jews  had  become  connected  with  this  wretched 
trade,  as  we  can  see  from  Pope  Gregory  and 
Gregory  of  Tours.  The  Church  vigorously  pro- 
tested against  this,  but  not  from  humanitarian 
reasons,  since  Christians  were  allowed  to  hold 
slaves,  but  for  fear  that  Christian  slaves  should 
be  converted  to  Judaism,  or  even  the  pagan  slaves 
should  thus  be  added  to  the  Jewish  forces.  The 
object  is  plainly  stated  in  Justinian's  Novella, 
xxxvii,  which  declares  that  not  alone  Jews  but 
Arians,  Donatists,  and  pagans  should  not  be  al- 
lowed to  hold  Christian  slaves.  Nevertheless,  the 
rulers  of  Christian  states  found  it  impossible  to 
carry  out  the  Church's  wishes  in  this  regard,  and 
up  to  the  tenth  century  Jews  were  the  chief  slave- 
dealers  of  Europe  and  were  thus  indirectly  the 
cause  of  introducing  Christianity  into  England, 
according  to  the  well-known  anecdote.  In  the 
tenth  century  their  place  in  the  slave  trade  was 
taken  by  Amalfitani  and  Venetians.  The  latter 
would,  during  the  course  of  this  century,  tend  to 
exclude  more  and  more  completely  Jews  from  the 
Oriental  trade.  In  964  they  prohibited  Venetian 
vessels  from  carrying  Jewish  passengers  to  Byzan- 
tium; in  992  they  extended  the  prohibition  to 
Jewish  goods. 

200 


JEWS    AND    COMMERCE 

It  would  be  Interesting  in  this  connection  to 
determine  the  amount  of  Jewish  intermediation 
with  regard  to  the  influence  of  Arabia  in  pro- 
ducing what  we  term  personal  refinement. 
Mr.  Houston  Chamberlain  and  thinkers  of  his 
school  may  be  distressed  to  learn  that  what  we 
know  as  refinement,  that  is,  careful  personal 
choice  in  the  material  surroundings  of  our  lives, 
can  be  traced  not  to  the  Teutonic  Goths  and 
Vandals  but  to  the  Semitic  Saracens.  Before  the 
twelfth  century,  the  homes,  even  of  the  higher 
classes  in  Europe,  were  nearly  as  bare  and  rude 
as  those  of  savages;  their  food  was  of  the  most 
primitive  kind,  without  variety,  and  consisting  in 
winter  mainly  of  salted  meat,  owing  to  the  im- 
possibility of  keeping  fodder  for  any  but  the  sires 
and  dams.  Almost  all  the  luxuries  that  came  in 
about  that  time  were  from  the  East,  as  can  be 
seen  even  at  the  present  day  by  the  derivation  of 
their  names.  In  material  for  clothes  they  thus 
obtained  cotton,  silk,  velvet,  satin  (from  Zayton), 
damask,  cashmere,  camlet,  muslin  (from  Mosul), 
chintz,  moire,  taffeta,  gingham,  chiffon,  serge, 
cralmoisy,  mohair;  and  in  articles  of  dress,  sash, 
shawl,  chemise,  tiara,  mask,  and  turban;  in  house 
decoration   we    have    carpets,    tapestry,    mattress, 

201 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

sofa,  divan,  alcove,  baldaquin  (from  Badgad), 
and  lacquer  work,  besides  carafe,  cup  (French, 
Tasse),  jar,  candle  (French,  bougie),  and  valise; 
among  table  fruits  we  owe  to  the  Arabs  mul- 
berries, pistachios,  figs,  citrons,  watermelons,  apri- 
cots, damsons,  oranges,  peaches,  lemons,  and 
limes;  among  vegetables,  the  artichoke,  asparagus, 
spinach,  and  eschalet  (from  Askalon),  as  well  as 
rice;  among  flowers,  the  lilac,  rose,  jasmine,  and 
tulip.  Some  of  the  more  domestic  musical  instru- 
ments, like  the  lute,  the  tambour,  tambourine,  and 
rebeck,  come  from  the  same  source;  of  precious 
stones,  the  ruby,  turquoise,  amber,  jasper,  jade, 
and  lapislazuli ;  while  all  spices,  pomades,  and 
cosm.etics,  and  many  dyes,  including  indigo  (from 
India),  are  Eastern  in  origin.  In  medicine,  the 
Arabs  introduced  syrups  and  julep,  nitre  and  soda, 
senna  and  camphor,  alum  and  borax,  tamarinds 
and  laudanum,  and  mercury  as  a  drug.  Many  of 
these  objects  were  doubtless  introduced  after  the 
Crusades,  but  some  of  them  can  be  shown  to  have 
been  used  In  Europe  before  the  twelfth  century, 
and  in  these  cases  their  introduction  was  probably 
due  to  the  Radanites.  I  have  drawn  out  a  list  of 
some  thousand  objects  whose  names,  in  the  various 

202 


JEWS    AND    COMMERCE 

European  languages,  can  be  derived  from  Oriental 
tongues/ 

Out  of  these  one  may  fairly  attribute  to  the 
influence  of  the  Radanites  the  introduction  of  ob- 
jects which  are  mentioned  before  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury In  writers  like  al-Mas'udi,  al-KIndl,  Istakhri, 
Avicenna,  Isaac  Israeli,  or  Constantinus  Afer. 
Again,  words  derived  from  the  Persian  through 
the  Arabic  or  the  Greek  are  likely  to  be  early, 
since,  later  on,  the  loans  were  in  the  opposite 
direction. 

Judging  by  these  criteria,  Europe  owes  to  the 
Jewish  Radanites  the  introduction  of  oranges  and 
apricots,  sugar  and  rice,  Jargonelle  pears,  and 
Gueldre  roses,  senna  and  borax,  bdellium  and  asa- 
foetlda,  sandal-wood  and  aloes,  cinnamon  and  ga- 
llngale,  mace  and  camphor,  candy  and  julep, 
cubebs  and  tamarinds,  slippers  and  tambours, 
mattress,  sofa,  and  calabash,  musk  and  jujube, 
jasmine  and  lilac.  There  Is  also  evidence  that 
some    of   the    more    Important    items    of    foreign 

^  For  English  I  have  used  Skeat;  for  French,  Devic's  supple- 
ment to  Littre,  and  Lammens,  Remargues  sur  les  Mots  Franqais, 
Beyrout,  1890;  for  Spanish  and  Portuguese,  Dozy  and  Engel- 
mann;  for  Dutch,  Dozy,  Oosterlingen,  Leyden,  1867;  for  Anglo- 
Indian,  Yule's  Glossary;  and  for  Elizabethan  commerce,  Bar- 
rett's list  in  Hakluyt,  ii,  127. 

203 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

trade  came  in  with  the  Radanites,  as  was  perhaps 
natural.  Thus  the  word  "douane,"  for  custom 
house,  "tariff,"  "bazaar,"  "bale,"  "fondac,"  or 
factory,  and  "baggage,"  all  occur  early,  as  well 
as  "barge,"  "barque,"  and  "sloop"  (Lammens). 
There  is  also  probability  that  the  royal  breed  of 
horses  In  France  known  as  limousin,  introduced 
in  the  ninth  century,  was  due  to  these  Jewish 
merchants,  who  exchanged  French  slaves  in  Spain 
for  Arab  (really  Barbary)  horses,  with  bay  color, 
small  heads,  white  stockings,  and  curved  tails/ 
On  the  debit  side,  however,  there  is  probably  to 
be  found  the  introduction  of  opium  into  China 
from  India,  with  its  Arabic  name  "A-fu-yung," 
at  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century.^ 

These  wandering  Jewish  merchants,  who 
brought  Eastern  luxuries  into  Europe  and  took 
back  furs,  young  slaves,  and  non-precious  metals 
to  Saracen  countries,  would  mainly  conduct  their 
business  for  cash.  Most  of  the  ordinary  transac- 
tions of  the  time  were  carried  out  in  kind  or,  in 
other  words,  by  barter.    Now  money  was  in  those 

*  See  Ridgeway,  Origin  of  the  Thoroughbred  Horse,  and 
Pigeonneau,  Histoire  du  Commerce.  The  croup  of  a  horse  is, 
according  to  Lammens,  of  Arabic  origin,  and  so  is  "to  caracole." 

"  Yule,  s.v. 

204 


JEWS    AND    COMMERCE 

days  only  to  be  found  in  the  towns,  chiefly  in  the 
market  towns,  and  accordingly  it  is  only  in  these 
that  Jews  were  to  be  found  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  manors  were  a  compromise  between  the  Mili- 
tary and  the  Clan  State,  in  neither  of  which  the 
Jew  had  a  place,  and  therefore  he  could  neither 
do  military  service  for  a  fief  nor  hold  a  farm  un- 
der a  "lord."  Thus  the  whole  constitution  of 
mediaeval  Christendom  forced  the  Jews  into  the 
towns,  and  prepared  them  for  the  function  of 
helping  to  transform  the  economics  of  Europe 
from  a  barter  to  a  money  system. 

This  transition  came  in  Western  Europe  mainly 
in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries.  It  spread 
from  the  king  as  head  of  the  Military  State  down- 
wards; he  found  it  more  efficient  to  keep  an  army 
of  mercenaries  under  his  continual  control  than 
to  depend  upon  the  often  unwilling  service  of  his 
vassals.  Hence  the  increasing  practice  of  com- 
muting the  duty  of  military  service  for  a  fixed 
sum  (named  "scutage"  in  England),  and  this 
later  on  led  to  general  taxation  not  alone  of  vas- 
sals but  of  all  persons  living  in  the  territory  un- 
der the  control  of  the  king.^     The  same  practice 

^  As  in  the  Saladdin  tithe  in  England;   see  Jenks,  Laiu  and 
Politics,  p.  95. 

205 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

was  soon  followed  by  abbeys  and  monasteries  who 
desired  to  build,  and  by  the  superior  nobles  who 
wished  to  have  a  force  at  command,  or  desired 
to  build  castles,  or  to  go  on  crusade.  For  all 
these  purposes,  warfare,  taxation,  building,  or 
crusading,  actual  cash  was  much  more  efficient 
than  aids  in  kind  or  service.  Hence  the  twelfth 
century  sees  the  rise,  in  Western  Europe,  of  a 
money-economy  instead  of  a  barter-economy. 

But  where  were  kings,  nobles,  and  clergy  to 
get  any  large  sum.s  of  coin?  Those  who  pos- 
sessed coin  would  not  lend  it  in  most  cases  without 
some  compensation  for  risk  and  loss  of  use,  which 
we  nowadays  call  interest  or  profit.  But  the 
Church  had  definitely  set  its  face  against  all  tak- 
ing of  interest,  regarding  it  as  unjust  to  sell  some- 
thing which  doesn't  exist  (Thomas  Aquinas).^ 
Usury,  as  all  taking  of  interest  was  called,  was 

'  T.  Reinach  elaborately  argues,  in  Revue  des  Etudes  Juives, 
vi,  p.  141,  that  this  is  due  to  the  Vulgate  mistranslation  of  Luke  6, 
14;  but  it  is  simpler  to  regard  it  as  due  to  the  direct  prohibition  of 
Exodus  22,  24.  See  M.  Hoffmann,  Geldhandel  der  deutschen 
Juden,  Leipzig,  1910,  to  which  I  am  much  indebted  for  what  fol- 
lows. It  is  just  possible  that  the  stringency  of  Church  doctrine 
was  influenced,  as  in  the  case  of  the  badge,  by  Muslim  views. 
See  E.  Cohn,  Der  Wucher  (Riba)  in  Ouoran,  Chadith  und  Fiqh, 
Heidelberg,  1903 ;  B.  Fekar,  L'usure  en  droit  musulman,  Lyons, 
1908. 

206 


JEWS    AND    COMMERCE 

regarded  as  "mercatura  Illicita,"  and  Church 
council  after  Church  counci)  thundered  against  its 
practice  by  Christians  who  were  ipso  facto  ren- 
dered excommunicate.  Lay  usurers  were  threat- 
ened with  infamy  and  put  on  the  same  level  as 
murderers  and  adulterers,  being  excluded  from 
religious  burial.  Churchmen  who  indulged  in  the 
practice  were  to  be  deprived  of  their  benefices. 
Strangely  enough,  it  was  allowed  to  take  usury 
from  heathens  or  Jews,  as  being  outside  the  Chris- 
tian communion  and  therefore  "perpetual  ene- 
mies"  ("Ubi  jus  belli,  ibi  jus  usurae"). 

The  Church  was  thinking  more  of  the  condi- 
tions of  an  agricultural  community  in  which  loans 
are  more  precarious  and  usury  more  dangerous 
than  in  other  spheres  of  economics.^  But  for  any 
kind  of  industrial  progress  this  restriction  of  bank- 
ing facilities  was  a  great  check  on  economic 
progress.  In  particular,  building  operations, 
which  were  the  chief  form  of  large  transactions 
(as  well  as  of  art)  in  the  Middle  Ages,  could 
hardly   be   undertaken    without   unusual    expendi- 

^This  is  brought  out  clearly  by  the  Catholic  theologian  Funk 
in  his  Zins  und  IVucher.  See  W.  J.  Ashley,  Introduction  to 
English  Economic  History  and  Theory,  Book  I,  chapter  vi,  who 
is  inclined  to  defend  the  Church  prohibition  of  usury  for  mediae- 
val conditions. 

207 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

ture  of  money,  which  scarcely  any  private  persons 
would  be  able  to  accumulate. 

Here  came  In  the  function  of  the  Jew  In  me- 
dlcEval  economics,  who  was  not  affected  by  the 
Church  prohibitions  and  was  equally  unaffected  by 
any  prohibition  of  rabbinic  law  against  lending  to 
Gentiles,  though  the  biblical  command  not  to  lend 
to  brother  Jews  was  rigidly  adhered  to.  Nor 
could  the  Church  prevent  the  practice  of  Jewish 
usury,  since  Jews  were  outside  of  the  sphere  of 
the  Canon  law.  Hence  we  find,  from  the  twelfth 
century  onwards,  Jews  as  the  recognized  money- 
lenders, to  whom  all  the  upper  classes  of  society 
resorted  whenever  they  wished  to  build,  or  travel, 
or  fight;  the  lower  classes  still,  for  the  most  part, 
paid  for  their  living  In  service  or  kind,  and  ex- 
isted on  a  barter-economy.  To  give  just  a  few 
examples  from  England,  nine  of  the  Cistercine 
monasteries  and  the  abbey  of  St.  Albans  were 
all  built  by  monies  advanced  by  Aaron  of  Lin- 
coln, the  great  Jewish  financier  of  the  twelfth 
century. 

The  interest  granted  for  such  loans  was  indeed 
high  and  might  fairly  be  termed  usurious.  When 
fixed  by  law  in  Germany  and  England,  it  was 
rarely  below  43^a  p*er  cent  when  the  sole  secur- 

208 


JEWS    AND    COMMERCE 

Ity  was  the  debtor's  word  or  bond.  But  it  must 
be  remembered  that  Jews  in  particular  under- 
went great  risks,  as  they  were  often  repaid  in 
bad  or  clipped  money,  and  had  to  bribe  or  pay 
law  costs  to  recover  their  money,  while,  if  the 
debtor  died,  his  heirs  might  not  recognize  the 
debt,  or  his  overlord  might  seize  his  whole  prop- 
erty. 

Above  all,  the  Jew  was  continuously  subject 
to  exactions  from  the  kings  and  emperors,  who, 
as  we  have  seen  (Chapter  III),  regarded  them 
as  part  of  their  "eminent  domain."  All  prop- 
erty of  a  usurer  who  died  escheated  to  the  king, 
whether  he  were  Jew  or  Gentile,  so  that  the  prop- 
erty of  a  Jewish  usurer  was  always  potentially 
the  property  of  the  king  from  this  point  of  view, 
quite  apart  from  his  peculiar  status  as  perpetual 
enemy.  But  in  allowing  the  Jew  to  sue  for  his 
usurious  debt  In  the  king's  courts,  the  kings 
naturally  claimed  their  dues,  and,  in  addition, 
taxed  them  to  an  amount  which  was  never  under 
a  fifth  and  often  reached  as  much  as  a  quarter 
or  a  third  of  their  income.  In  addition,  popes 
and  kings  and  even  nobles  and  clergy,  who  had 
Jews  under  their  jurisdiction,  claimed  the  right, 
quite   arbitrarily,    to   remit    interest   or   even   the 

209 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

whole  debt,  as  Philip  Augustus  did  in  1180,  on 
condition  that  the  debtors  of  the  Jews  should  pay 
part  of  their  debts  into  the  royal  treasury.  As  a 
consequence,  we  find  about  one-twelfth  of  the 
royal  income  derived  directly,  or  indirectly,  from 
Jewish  usury.^  Small  comparatively  as  this  frac- 
tion was,  it  was  constitutionally  of  considerable 
importance,  since  this  source  of  income  was  en- 
tirely under  the  king's  control  and  very  often 
enabled  him  to  exercise  influence  upon  such  of  his 
nobles  or  of  the  towns  as  had  got  into  the  hands 
of  "his"  Jews.  In  fact,  in  this  way  the  kings  of 
England  and  Spain,  and  to  a  less  extent  the  kings 
of  France  and  the  emperors  of  the  Holy  Roman 
empire,  became  the  arch-usurers  of  their  realms. 

The  Jews,  however,  had  far  from  monopoly 
of  usurious  loans.  Lamprecht,"  indeed,  contends 
that  up  to  the  twelfth  century  the  chief  loans 
were  mainly  made  by  the  clergy;  up  to  the  thir- 
teenth by  citizens  and  nobles;  and  only  in  the 
fourteenth  by  Jews.  This  distinction,  however,  is 
too  rigid,  as  already  in  the  twelfth  century  we 
find   the    right   of   trading   debarred   to   Jews   in 

'  For  England,   see  Jacobs,  Jezvs   of  Angevin  England.     For 
Germany,  Hoffmann.    For  Spain,  Jacobs,  Spanish  Jeivisk  History. 
'"^  Deutsches  Wirtscliafisleben  in  Mittelalter,  i,  pp.  1446,  seq. 
210 


JEWS    AND    COMMERCE 

the  charters,  and  instances  of  money-lending  by 
them  are  found  even  earHer.  Besides,  throughout 
the  period  from  iioo  to  1350,  during  which 
Europe  changed  from  a  barter-economy  to  a 
money-economy,  usurious  loans  were  illicit  and 
secret  by  Christians,  permitted  and  enforced  by 
the  courts  when  made  by  Jews.  On  the  other 
hand,  Bourgelot  declares  that  the  Jews  were  solely 
money-lenders,  whereas  Lombards  were  money- 
changers and  Cahorsins  small  bankers.  This  dis- 
tinction does  not  hold,  since  we  find  Lombards  and 
Cahorsins  lending  money  and  Jews  changing  it. 
For  by  the  thirteenth  century  direct  and  open 
competition  came  into  the  money-lending  business 
through  those  whom  the  Jews  themselves  called 
"the  pope's  usurers."  ^  One  of  the  needs  for  a 
cash  economy  was  for  the  payment  of  Peter's 
pence  and  other  papal  dues  to  Rome.  Bankers  on 
a  large  scale  from  Rome,  Siena,  Florence,  Este, 
Pisa,  and  Pistoja,  mostly  in  connection  with  the 
Roman  Curia,  and  known  collectively  as  "Lom- 
bards," agreed  with  the  ecclesiastical  debtors  of 
the  papal  court  at  the  fairs  of  Champagne  to  pay 
their  debts  at  Rome  and  let  the  indebtedness  run 
on  from  fair  to  fair  at  the  rate  of  10  per  cent,  or 

*  Matt.  Paris,  ed.  Luard. 

211 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS   TO    CIVILIZATION 

60  per  cent  per  annum.  Money-lenders  on  a 
smaller  scale,  named  Cahorsins,  after  Cahors,  but 
mostly  coming  from  Asti  and  Cheri,  were  more 
direct  competitors  of  the  Jews  as  usurers,  and 
represent  the  whole  •  class  in  Dante;  but  their 
numbers  were  comparatively  small  (only  four,  for 
example,  were  existent  at  Constance  in  1282), 
and  hence  there  were  no  popular  uprisings  against 
them. 

These  Lombards  (after  whom  Lombard  Street, 
the  banking  quarter  of  London,  is  called)  were 
the  direct  rivals  of  the  Jews  in  supplying  the  ab- 
beys and  nobles  with  monies  intended  for  pay- 
ment in  Rome.  Hence  the  Jews  protested  against 
their  admission  in  London,  in  1255,  and  in  Co- 
logne, in  1266;  but  In  vain.  Behind  the  Lom- 
bards was  the  power  of  the  Roman  Curia,  which 
often  threatened  excommunication  to  those  who 
did  not  pay  their  debts,  however  usurious.  As 
the  thirteenth  century  passed  on,  the  competi- 
tion of  the  Lombards  became  more  serious, 
and  when  the  Black  Death  In  the  middle  of  the 
fourteenth  century  had  wiped  out  many  of  the 
German  communities,  the  Italian  bankers  and 
their  Imitators  at  Augsburg  and  Nuremberg  en- 

212 


JEWS    AND    COMMERCE 

tirely  ousted  the  Jews  from  the  larger  fields  of 
money-lending. 

Meanwhile  in  England  and  France  Jews  had 
been  expelled,  to  a  large  extent,  because  the  ex- 
periment of  using  them  as  indirect  tax-gatherers 
and  illicit  bankers  had  proved  too  expensive  and 
against  the  public  conscience.  The  feudal  system 
kept  Jews  out  of  the  country  and  the  farms.  The 
guild  system  prevented  them  from  earning  their 
living  as  industrials,  or  even  as  merchants,  because 
these  guilds  were  religious  fraternities,  arranging 
for  masses  of  the  souls  of  dead  members,  as  well 
as  trade  organizations.  Consequently,  when  it 
was  decided  that  the  Jewish  usury  was  objection- 
able and  too  expensive,  the  only  alternative  was 
expulsion,  whicch  occurred  in  England  in  1290, 
in  France  in  1306  (and  later  dates),  and  in  Ger- 
many, in  various  sporadic  cases,  in  the  different 
cities  which  had  comparative  autonomy  from  the 
rule  of  the  emperors.  In  Spain  fearful  persecu- 
tions, in  1 39 1,  largely  wiped  out  the  Jewish  pop- 
ulation as  Jews,  though  leaving  the  converted 
remnant  to  continue  their  financial  activities  as 
Marranos. 

We  may  now  attempt  to  measure,  to  some  ex- 
tent, the  influence  of  Jewish  usury  upon  the  eco- 

213 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

nomic  development  of  the  Middle  Ages  from 
1 1  GO  to  1400,  They  certainly  helped  the  transi- 
tion from  a  barter-economy  to  a  money-economy, 
in  which,  during  that  period,  they  had,  to  a  large 
extent,  a  monopoly.  Of  course,  loans  were  made, 
both  with  and  without  interest,  by  Gentiles  un- 
der various  forms,  which  evaded  the  prohibition 
of  usury,  or  really  did  not  come  under  that  term 
as  conceived  by  Canonists.  But  in  anything  like 
a  speculative  employment  of  capital  for  purely 
industrial  or  trade  purposes,  the  Jews  were  almost 
the  sole  bankers,  where  credit  was  required  with- 
out fluid  collateral  or  pledge.  Even  where  nor- 
mal loans  were  usual  between  Christians,  the  Jews 
probably  reduced  the  current  rate  of  interest. 
Thus  in  North  Germany,  where  there  were  no 
Jews,  10  per  cent  was  regarded  as  a  usual  re- 
turn for  the  use  of  capital  with  secure  collateral, 
whereas  in  South  Germany,  where  there  was  Jew- 
ish competition,  such  interest  was  between  4^ 
and  83/2  per  cent;  in  Kiel,  where  there  were  no 
Jews,  the  ordinary  interest  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury was  between  15  and  33%  per  cent;  In  Lin- 
dau  interest  was  charged  by  Christian  merchants 
even  to  the  amount  of  216  per  cent  per  annum, 
so  that  the  citizens  begged   for  the  admission  of 

214 


JEWS    AND    COMMERCE 

Jews  into  the  town  as  a  remedy  for  this  intoler- 
able state  of  things/ 

It  would,  however,  be  a  mistake  to  regard  the 
mediaeval  Jews  as  the  originators  of  banks,  prop- 
erly so  called,  that  is  institutions  which  receive 
other  people's  monies  and  lend  them  out.  These 
can  be  distinctly  traced  to  the  Italian  towns, 
Genoa,  Florence,  and  Venice;  and  even  Sombart 
has  failed  to  prove  any  connection  of  Jews  with 
the  beginnings  of  banking  in  these  towns.  The 
question  whether  they  originated  bills  of  exchange 
is  still  under  discussion,  though  there  is  something 
like  them  in  talmudic  law."  The  late  Prof.  Charles 
Gross  pointed  out  that  the  transference  of  debts 
from  one  Jew  to  another  had  something  like  the 
effect  of  increasing  the  currency,  but  such  trans- 
fers were  by  no  means  frequent.  Roscher  and 
Scherer  contend  that  the  legal  principle,  that 
sales  made  bona  fide  in  market  overt  are  valid, 
is  derived  from  the  Jewish  practice  of  money- 
lenders in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  shows  the  in- 
fluence of  talmudic  law.  Indirectly,  modern  pawn- 
broking  may  be  said  to  be  derived  from  the  Jew- 
ish usury  of  the  Middle  Ages,  because  the  Monte 

*  Hoffmann,  op.  cit.,  p.  29. 
'Ketubot  101b;  Baba  Batra  172a. 
215 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

di  Pieta  of  Italy  were  mainly  founded  In  order 
to  protect  the  common  people  from  the  high  rates 
charged  by  Jewish  money-lenders/  But  this  was 
rather  later  than  the  period  we  are  at  present 
considering,  when  Jews,  by  the  competition  of 
Lombards,  had  been  reduced  from  unlicensed 
bankers  to  pedlars  and  pawn-brokers,  which  was 
their  main  occupation  In  Mid-Europe  after  the 
Black  Death. 

Perhaps  the  most  Important  Influence  of  me- 
diasval  Jewish  usury  was  in  the  effect  it  had  upon 
the  king's  position  with  regard  to  his  subjects.  It 
gave  him  a  sure  source  of  Income,  which,  thougk 
probably  not  more  than  one-tenth  of  the  whole 
amount,  was  free  from  any  direct  Interference  on 
the  part  of  his  subjects.  So  far  as  this  helped 
to  consolidate  the  nation  by  making  the  king's 
power  effective  In  all  quarters  of  the  land, 
It  helped  the  general  growth  of  nationalities, 
which  were  ultimately  destined  to  break  up  the 
uniformity  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Economically,  however,  the  part  taken  by  Jew- 
ish usury,  though  Important  In  Its  tendency,  was 
probably  not  large  In  extent.  It  is  probable  that 
90  per  cent  of  the  inhabitants  of  feudal  Europe 

^  See  Revue  des  Etudes  Juives,  ii,  pp.  175,  seg. 
216 


JEWS    AND    COMMERCE 

never  made  use  of  money  throughout  their  lives, 
being  fixed  on  their  fields  and  earning  their  liv- 
ing by  service  to  their  lords.  With  them  the  Jews 
had  practically  nothing  to  do.  It  was  only  in  the 
tov/ns  that  their  presence  was  at  all  effective  in 
helping  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  industrial  de- 
velopment of  Europe. 


217 


CHAPTER   VII 
Jews  and  Capitalism 

We  hav^e  seen  that  Jews  helped  considerably  In 
the  transition  of  Europe  from  a  barter-economy 
to  a  money-economy  during  the  quarter  of  a  mil- 
lennium ( 1 100-1350).  By  the  later  date  their 
functions  in  this  regard  had  been  transferred  to 
Italian  bankers,  and  they  themselves,  to  a  large 
extent,  removed  from  the  countries  of  Western 
Europe,  except  Spain.  Forty  years  later,  during 
the  terrible  persecutions  of  139 1,  promoted  by 
the  fanaticism  of  St.  Vincent  Ferrer,  the  majority 
of  the  Jews  of  the  Iberian  Peninsula  became  for- 
cibly converted  to  Christianity,  but  yet  retained 
their  adhesion  to  their  ancestral  faith  secretly, 
mostly  marrying  among  themselves,  and  were 
marked  out  as  "new  Christians"  or,  in  popular 
parlance,   Marranos. 

For  reasons  not  quite  clear,  the  Jews  of  Spain 
had  preserved  their  monopoly  of  money-lending, 
up  to  the  fateful  date  1391,  without  any  interfer- 
ence from  the  "papal  usurers,"  as  in  the  west  of 

218 


JEWS    AND    CAPITALISM 

Western  Europe.  Consequently,  when  nominally 
converted,  they  continued  to  conduct  the  financial 
operations  of  the  Spanish  kings  and  nobles  during 
the  last  struggle  with  the  Moors,  and,  as  is  well 
known,  in  this  way  came  to  finance  the  voyages 
of  Columbus.  When  the  more  faithful  part  of 
the  Jewish  "nation"  was  expelled  from  Spain  in 
the  same  year  as  the  discovery  of  America,  1492, 
they  still  retained  their  relations,  family,  friendly, 
and  financial,  with  the  Marranos,  or  "new  Chris- 
tians," left  behind;  and  this  enabled  them,  some- 
what later  on,  to  take  a  prominent  part  in  the 
transference  of  the  commercial  hegemony  from 
Spain  to  the  Netherlands  and  England.  But  they 
were  only  enabled  to  do  this  by  developments  in 
European  economics,  which  led  from  a  money- 
economy  to  a  credit-economy,  which  is  at  present 
the  ultimate  stage  of  economic  development. 
With  the  early  stages  of  this  transition  the  Jews 
had  practically  nothing  to  do,  though  they  availed 
themselves  of  its  facilities  as  soon  as  they  settled 
down  after  the  convulsion  of  1492.^ 

^  The  three  stages  in  Spanish  Jewish  finance  are  marked  by 
the  years  1391  (the  Ferrer  Riots),  1492  (the  Expulsion),  and 
1593  (the  foundation  of  the  Amsterdam  community).  It  was 
between  the  last  two  dates  that  Europe  independently  created 
its  international  credit-economy. 

219 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

As  R.  Ehrenberg  has  shown,  in  his  admirable 
work,   Das  Zeitalter  der  Fugger    (Jena,    1896), 
the  beginnings  of  the  modern  credit  system,  and 
thus  of  modern  capitahsm,   in  Europe  were  due 
to  the  need  of  money  payments  to  mercenary  sol- 
diers in  the  wars  between  Charles  V  and  Francis 
I,    from    1520    onward,    for    over    thirty    years. 
Here,    for    the    first    time    in    European    finance,^ 
large    sums   were    lent   to    governments    (on    the 
security    of    the    taxes)    by    individual    firms,    or 
groups  of  firms,  the  Fuggers  in  Augsburg  financing 
Charles  V,  the  Strozzi  being  the  main  backers  of 
Francis    I.      Now,    though    both    these    leading 
capitalists   enlisted   the   resources   of  many   other 
German  and  Italian  firms,  there  is  no  evidence  of 
any  Jewish  capitalists  being  concerned  in  this  first 
great   attempt   to  finance  modern   states   in  their 
capacity  as   military  organizations.      The   experi- 
ence of  the  Hundred  Years'  War  in  France,  the 
struggle  with  the  Moors  in  Spain,  and  the  fights 
of    the     Condottieri    in    Italy,    had    shown    the 
necessity  of  such  financial  backing  when  the  two 
great    world    powers,    the    Hapsburgs    and    the 

^  That  is,  on  so  large  a  scale.  The  Bardi  and  Prescobaldi 
of  Florence  failed  on  account  of  the  loans  made  by  them  to 
Edward  III. 

220 


JEWS    AND    CAPITALISM 

Valois,  determined  to  fight  for  the  conquest  of 
the  world.  Jews  had  nothing  to  do  with  this 
first  stage  in  the  development  of  modern 
capitalism. 

Nor  were  they  connected  with  the  exchanges 
in  which  these  large  credit  transactions  were  con- 
summated. Special  meeting-places  for  merchants 
for  money-lending  and  money-changing  were  early 
established  in  Lucca,  Genoa,  Florence,  Venice,  and 
other  Italian  cities,  as  well  as  in  Montpellier  and 
Marseilles  in  France,  at  Barcelona  (after  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Jews  from  that  city),  and  even 
in  London,  in  Lombard  Street.  But  the  first  real 
exchange  building  (where  transactions  were  con- 
ducted daily  and  not  only  at  fair  time)  has  been 
traced  to  Bruges,  where  a  special  building  was 
named  after  the  "Bursa,"  the  name  of  a  Bruges 
family  (Van  der  Burse),  which  had  a  purse  on 
its  coat  of  arms.  Both  name  and  custom  were 
then  transferred  to  Antwerp,  where  the  model  of 
all  European  Bourses  was  built  in  1531.  Here 
again  there  is  no  evidence  of  Jewish  participation 
in  the  organization  of  the  Antwerp  Exchange, 
though  it  is  possible  that  some  of  the  Mendez 
family  utilized  it  before  Don  Jose  went  to  Con- 

221 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

stantinople    to    begin    his    remarkable    career    as 
financier  of  the  Turkish  empire. 

These  Marrano  families  spread,  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  throughout  the  New  World,  and 
toward  the  end  of  it  a  number  of  them  settled  in 
Amsterdam  and  formed  a  financial  link  between 
the  empire  of  Philip  II  and  the  revolted  Nether- 
lands. A  little  later  there  was  a  similar  settle- 
ment in  Hamburg,  and  connections  of  the  chief 
Marrano  families  like  the  Caceres,  Carvajal, 
Conegllano,  Henriques,  and  others,  are  found  in 
the  seventeenth  century  in  Mexico,  Brazil,  Lis- 
bon, the  Canary  Islands,  Amsterdam,  Hamburg, 
and  even  London.  This  wide  spread  of  members 
of  the  same  family  enabled  them  to  facilitate 
commercial  transactions  between  the  different 
countries,  and  especially  to  operate  the  movements 
of  bullion  needed  to  settle  the  balance  of  trade. 
Thus,  to  give  a  single  example,  it  was  calculated 
that  Ferdinand  Carvajal  brought  In  annually 
£100,000  worth  of  bullion  to  London,  equal  to 
one-twelfth  of  the  national  income  at  the  time, 
and  this  was  urged  as  one  of  the  reasons  for  ad- 
mitting the  Jews  into  England.^     Those  were  the 

'  Up  to  quite  recently  the  official  bullion  brokers  of  the  Bank 
of  England  were  Messrs.  Mocatta  and  Goldsmid. 

222 


JEWS    AND    CAPITALISM 

days  of  mercantilist  conceptions,  when  exagger- 
ated importance  was  attributed  to  the  influx  of 
the  precious  metals. 

Besides  this  trade  in  bullion,  the  Marranos  were 
also  able,  by  their  wide  dispersion,  to  assist  in 
the  transfer  of  the  colonial  trade  of  the  New 
World  in  sugar  and  indigo.  There  is  some  evi- 
dence that  the  Jews  introduced  sugar  plantation 
into  St.  Thomas,  and  even  into  Brazil;  and  when 
they  were  expelled  from  the  latter,  in  1654,  they 
transferred  a  good  deal  of  their  activity  in  this 
regard  to  Barbados,  Jamaica,  and  Martinique  and 
San  Domingo,  largely  increasing  the  sugar  pro- 
duction in  these  islands.  The  sugar  trade  between 
the  French  West-Indian  islands  and  the  mother- 
country  was  concentrated  at  Bordeaux,  where  the 
Marrano  firm  of  Gradis,  a  branch  of  the  Mendez 
family,  practically  controlled  it.^ 

There  is  little  doubt  that  these  activities  of  the 
Marranos  in  the  bullion  and  colonial  trades 
helped  in  a  measure  to  transfer  the  hegemony  of 
the  world's  commerce  from  Spain  and  Portugal 
to  Holland  and  England,  from  Lisbon  and  Ant- 
werp   to    Amsterdam    and    London.      Cromwell 

^  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  little  evidence  of  any  important 
participation  of  Jews  in  the  other  "colonial"  product,  tobacco. 

223  , 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

made  use  of  them  for  this  and  other  purposes, 
and  obtained  valuable  information  from  them  in 
his  war  with  Spain/  and  his  sense  of  their  utility 
In  this  regard  was  doubtless  one  of  the  reasons 
for  his  promoting  their  re-entrance  into  English 
life.  But  there  were  other  and  more  potent  rea- 
sons for  the  transfer  of  trade  supremacy  from 
the  Iberian  nations  to  the  Dutch  and  English, 
and  it  would  be  an  exaggeration  to  attribute  any 
decisive  Influence  to  the  Jewish  factor,  which  was 
solely  due  to  their  international  connections. 

On  the  European  Continent  Jewish  commercial 
development  was  also  due  to  their  wandering 
habits  and  dispersed  family  relations.  Owing  to 
the  competition  of  the  Italians  and  the  Increasing 
stringency  of  guild  regulations,  Jews  were  mainly 
restricted  to  peddling  and  pawn-broking  by  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Money-lend- 
ing on  a  small  scale  still  remained  with  them  as 
a  monopoly,  but  their  frequent  expulsions  In  Mid- 
Europe  prevented  any  large  accumulation  of  cap- 
ital enabling  them  to  do  business  on  a  large  scale, 
while  the  kings  and  rulers  had  given  up  the  prac- 
tice of  regarding  their  Jews  as  Integral,  though 
informal,   parts  of  their  treasuries.      Meanwhile, 

^L.  Wolf,  Cromivell's  Jeivish  Intelligencers,  London,  189L 
224 


JEWS    AND    CAPITALISM 

the  Wars  of  Religion,  with  their  mercenary 
troops,  had  brought  into  existence  a  new  class  of 
intermediary — the  commissary,  or  war-factor 
("Kriegsfaktor").  The  Jews,  by  their  connec- 
tion with  the  second-hand  trade,  were  favorably 
situated  to  carry  out  this  function,  and  we,  accord- 
ingly, find  them  increasingly  active  in  this  regard, 
from  Joselmann  of  Rosheim  and  Bassevi  of 
Prague,  in  the  sixteenth,  to  the  Oppenheimers  and 
Wertheimers  of  the  imperial  court,  at  the  end  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  In  the  great  struggle 
between  Marlborough  and  Louis  XIV  we  find  Sir 
Solomon  Medina,  on  the  one  side,  and  Jacob 
Worms,  on  the  other,  as  among  the  chief  sources 
of  supplies  for  the  respective  armies. 

In  the  interim  German  Jews  had  increased  their 
capital  by  the  purchases  of  loot  during  the  Thirty 
Years'  War,  and  a  certain  number  of  them  had 
been  found  useful  by  the  smaller  German  courts 
for  making  purchases  or  obtaining  prompt  loans. 
There  thus  arose  the  practice  of  appointing  the 
chief  Jew  in  a  residential  city  as  a  court-Jew 
("Hof-Jude").  These  often  combined  the  posi- 
tion of  purchasing  agents  with  that  of  war  com- 
missaries. It  may  be  further  conjectured  that 
those  of  the  German  princes  who  were  fortunate 

225 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

enough  to  have  had  money  at  their  disposal  were 
enabled  to  invest  it  through  their  court-Jews  to 
advantage,  sometimes  by  loans  to  their  more  ne- 
cessitous peers.  Thus,  when  we  find  the  electors 
of  Hanover  and  Treves  assisting  Emanuel  Op- 
penheimer  to  recover  his  father's  debts  from  the 
imperial  treasury,  it  may  be  conjectured  that  part 
of  their  own  capital  had  been  advanced  through 
the  medium  of  his  father,  Samuel  Oppenheimer. 
We  certainly  know  that  later  on  Mayer  Roth- 
schild acted  as  an  intermediary  of  this  kind  be- 
tween the  elector  of  Hesse-Cassel  and  the  Dan- 
ish treasury.  In  this  way  these  "Hof-Juden" 
acted,  in  some  respects,  as  pioneers  in  the  field  of 
international  finance,  which  has  grown  so  great 
of  recent  years. 

The  main  series  of  these  "Hof-Juden"  were 
those  connected  with  the  imperial  court  of  Vienna, 
who  began  the  practice  under  Ferdinand  II  in 
connection  with  the  Thirty  Years'  War.^  The 
chief  names  are  Moses  Meisels  and  Jacob  Bassevi 
of  Prague,  Samuel  Oppenheimer  of  Heidelberg, 
Samson  Wertheimer  of  Worms,  and  his  son. 
Wolf  Wertheimer.  The  multi-racial  constitution 
of  the  Austrian  empire  was  doubtless  the  cause 

^  G.  Wolf,  Ferdinand  II  und  die  Juden,  Vienna,  1864. 
226 


JEWS    AND    CAPITALISM 

why  Jews,  scattered  among  all  the  provinces  of 
the  empire,  were  the  most  suitable  intermediaries 
in  collecting  money  and  provisions.  Leffmann 
Behrends  at  the  Hanoverian  court,  Behrend  Leh- 
mann  at  that  of  Saxony,  Marx  Model  at  Ansbach, 
Jost  Liebmann  at  the  court  of  the  Great  Elector, 
and  Joseph  Siiss  Oppenheimer  at  that  of  Wiir- 
temberg  are  other  representative  names.  The 
last-named  was,  for  a  time,  the  ruling  influence  in 
Wiirtemberg  affairs,  but  suffered  a  tragic  fate  in 
17 16.  But  almost  every  small  German  court  had 
its  "Hof-Jude"  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  though  the  financial  reforms  of 
Frederick  the  Great  rendered  their  aid  less  im- 
portant in  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. 

It  is  more  difficult  to  determine  the  share  of 
Jews  in  the  initial  stages  of  joint-stock  trading. 
In  a  measure  this  has  always  existed  in  the  ship- 
ping industry,  where  the  capital  for  distant  voy- 
ages was  rarely  supplied  by  the  captain  alone. 
But  the  historians  of  commerce  trace  the  begin- 
nings of  real  joint-stock  trading,  in  which  the 
shares  had  a  face  value  endorsed  to  bearer  and 
could  be  dealt  with  as  negotiable  property,  to  the 
formation  of  the  Dutch  East  India  Company,  in 

227 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

the  very  first  issues  of  which  Jews  had  a  share, 
though  a  very  moderate  one.^  They  had  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  English  East  India  Company, 
which  followed  four  years  later,  nor  with  the 
Plymouth  and  London  Companies,  which  started 
the  colonization  of  North  America. 

So,  too,  it  is  impossible  to  trace  any  Jewish 
influence  on  the  origin  of  the  stock  exchanges  of 
Europe  or  the  world.  As  soon  as  the  Antwerp 
exchange  was  firmly  established  in  the  beginning 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  dealings  began  to  be 
made  in  "futures"  in  the  price  of  pepper,  as  well 
as  in  instruments  of  credit.  There  is  no  evidence 
of  any  Jewish  initiative  in  these  transactions, 
though  possibly  some  Marranos  may  have  in- 
dulged in  them.  The  Royal  Exchange  of  Lon- 
don was  established  by  Sir  Thomas  Gresham  in 
imitation  of  the  Antwerp  exchange,  with  which 
he  was  familiar,  in  1572,  when  there  were  prac- 
tically no  Jews  in  London.  It  was  not  till  more 
than  a  century  later  that  twelve  Jewish  brokers 
were  allowed  to  conduct  business  there  (mainly 
in  bullion  broking)  in  combination  with  one  hun- 
dred native  brokers  and  twelve  others,   "foreign- 

^  For  details  of  their  participation,  see  Excursus  on  Sombart, 
infra,  pp.  247,  seq. 

228 


JEWS   AND    CAPITALISM 

ers."  In  Amsterdam  their  participation  in  the 
exchange,  both  for  produce  and  stocks,  seems  to 
have  been  greater,  and  the  first  full  account  of 
any  European  stock  exchange  was  made  by  a 
Spanish  Jew,  Joseph  de  La  Vega.  Much  exag- 
geration has  been  indulged  in  with  regard  to  the 
participation  of  Jews  even  in  contemporary  ex- 
changes, their  number  in  the  London  Stock  Ex- 
change, at  the  present  day,  only  amounting  to  5 
per  cent,  and  in  New  York  to  15  per  cent, 
proportions  by  no  means  predominant  or  out  of 
scale  with  the  commercial  significance  of  the  Jew- 
ish contingent  in  these  cities.  It  should,  besides, 
be  added  that  most  of  the  Jewish  members  of  the 
stock  exchange  center  their  dealings  on  foreign 
stock,  where,  again,  their  international  connec- 
tions give  them  an  advantage. 

It  has  been  alleged  by  Prof.  Sombart  that  Jews 
broke  down  the  old  system  of  customary  prices, 
and  introduced  the  modern  system  of  competi- 
tion. There  is  nothing  to  justify  so  broad  a  state- 
ment, though,  of  course,  the  peddling  and  second- 
hand trading  of  the  Jews  (as  of  others)  inter- 
fered somewhat  with  the  prices  fixed  by  the  guilds, 
till  quite  a  late  period  in  continental  trade. 
SchmoUer,   in  his  classical  treatment  of  the  sub- 

229 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

ject,  attributes  very  little  importance  to  the 
pedlar;^  and  it  is,  of  course,  the  Industrial  Revo- 
lution of  the  eighteenth  century,  with  its  conse- 
quent increase  of  factory  towns  and  wholesale 
trading  in  general,  which  is  the  true  cause  of  the 
competitive  methods  of  modern  trade. 

Nor  can  the  Jews  claim  any  special  influence 
on  modern  economic  development  through  their 
comparatively  large  connection  in  the  great  fairs 
of  Mid-Europe,  especially  that  held  at  Leipzig. 
Between  the  years  1675  and  1839  the  average 
number  of  Jews  who  invaded  the  Leipzig  fairs 
rose  from  416  in  1675  to  6,444  in  1839;  and  in 
the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  they  are 
reckoned  to  have  formed  over  a  quarter,  and 
sometimes  a  third,  of  the  total  visitors.  Here 
again  their  wide  dispersion  accounts  for  their 
large  activity.  It  was  convenient  for  them  to  meet 
customers  from  all  the  localities  with  which  they 
had  business  relations,  and  the  central  position  of 
Leipzig  enabled  Jews  from  Amsterdam,  Nizhni- 
Novgorod  and  Frankfort,  from  Dessau  and  Vi- 
enna, from  Cracow  and  Hamburg,  to  meet  thrice 
a  year  and  arrange  their  affairs.  This  must  have 
helped  to   increase   foreign  trade,   and   especially 

^  Zur  G  esc  hie  lite  der  deutschen  Kleingevjerbe,  pp.  237-46. 
230 


JEWS    AND    CAPITALISM 

inter-urban  trade;  but  Jews  were  not  the  only 
merchants  who  did  this,  nor  did  they  begin  the 
practice,  as  was  sufficiently  shown  by  the  fairs  of 
Champagne  in  the  Middle  Ages,  in  which  they 
had  little  or  no  share.^ 

The  wandering  habits  of  Jews  also  led  to  an 
extensive  development  of  their  commercial  activi- 
ties, which  may  have  helped  to  organize  and  de- 
velop general  trade.  In  England,  for  example, 
it  was  customary  for  the  Jews  of  the  sea-port 
towns  (who  are  frequently  referred  to  in  Cap- 
tain Marryatt's  novels)  to  send  out  their  sons 
every  Monday  morning  to  neighboring  villages 
as  hawkers,  who  would  return  in  time  for  the 
Friday  night  meal,  meanwhile  helping  to  circu- 
late goods  and  bring  back  second-hand  products. 
So,  too,  in  Vienna,  Jewish  firms  used  to  send  out 
agents  into  the  Bohemian  and  other  villages  to 
purchase  wool,  which  was  then  made  up  in  central 
factories.  The  same  practice  was  at  the  root  of 
Jewish  commerce  in  Russia,  where  these  itinerant 
agents  were  known  as  "Wocher."     Jewish  traders 

^The  visits  of  Jews  at  the  Leipzig  fairs  have  been  enumerated 
in  two  monographs  by  Markgraf,  1894,  and  Freudenthal,  1902. 
The  former  refers  to  the  period  1664-1839,  the  latter  goes  into 
more  detail  for  1675-99. 

231 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

thus  collected  furs  throughout  East  Europe,  and 
to  this  day  the  fur  trade  Is  largely  in  their  hands. 
It  Is,  however,  probable  that  It  was  through 
their  transactions  at  these  fairs  that  the  Jews  ac- 
quired sufficient  capital  to  play  the  role  of  "Hof- 
Juden"  and  commissaries  at  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  throughout  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  incessant  European  wars  of  that  period  called 
for  a  much  larger  outlay  than  could  be  afforded 
by  the  usual  taxation.  Resort  had  to  be  had  to 
loans  and  funded  debts,  and  In  Central  Europe, 
at  least,  there  were  few  large  capitalists  ready  to 
advance  loans  of  this  kind.  As  Ehrenberg  has 
shown,  the  practice  of  financing  war  loans  began 
in  the  era  of  the  Fuggers,  In  the  conflict  between 
Charles  V  and  Francis  I.  But  the  result  was  the 
bankruptcy  of  the  Fuggers,  owing  to  the  failure 
of  Philip  II,  in  1575,  and  the  failure  of  the 
Strozzi,  who  were  the  chief  financiers  of  the 
French  monarchy.  These  precedents  would  be 
enough  to  discourage  any  financiers  who  had  sur- 
vived the  horrors  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  But, 
in  addition  to  this,  there  was  the  doubtful  ques- 
tion whether  money  lent  to  a  monarch  became  a 
debt  to  the  state  after  his  death;  absolute  mon- 
archy has  Its  financial  disadvantages. 

232 


JEWS    AND    CAPITALISM 

With  respect  to  the  Jews,  the  case  was  some- 
what different.  Here  the  German  kings  and 
princes  could  offer  privileges  (of  residence,  of 
freedom  of  movement,  and  the  like)  which  could 
not  be  well  measured  in  money,  but  which  were 
an  inducement  to  Jews  to  lend  their  capital  on 
much  more  reasonable  terms  than  their  Christian 
competitors,  who  had  all  these  privileges  without 
paying  for  them.  The  favored  position  of  the 
"Hof-Juden,"  at  the  different  German  courts, 
enabled  them,  as  has  been  suggested  above,  to  in- 
vest the  capital  of  the  more  economical  princes 
with  those  who  were  vying  with  Louis  XIV  in 
the  splendor  of  their  courts  or  the  extent  of  their 
armed  conflicts.  Further,  for  commissary  pur- 
poses during  the  war,  Jews  were  the  only  per- 
sons who  would  be  likely  to  find  Jewish  friends 
in  the  enemy's  country  through  whom  they  could 
deliver  and  obtain  supplies.  Recent  researches 
have  shown  that,  for  over  half  a  century,  Jewish 
capital  kept  the  Austrian  treasury  going. 
Throughout  the  wars  with  the  Turks  and  those 
of  the  Spanish  Succession  and  up  to  the  first 
Silesian  War,  the  extraordinary  expenses  of  the 
Viennese  court  were  obtained  from  a  succession  of 
Jewish  financiers,  beginning  with  Samuel  Oppen- 

233 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

heimer  and  including  the  families  of  Wertheimer, 
Sinzheim,  Lehmann,  and  D'Aguilar,  the  latter  a 
link  with  the  Sephardic  families  of  Amsterdam 
and  London.  These  Jews  supplied  nearly  eighty 
million  gulden  between  the  years  1698  to  1739,  or 
an  average  of  two  million  a  year,  whereas  the 
total  income  of  the  treasury  was  not  more  than 
six  millions/  Their  transactions  extended 
through  Austria,  the  west  and  south  of  Germany, 
Hungary,  Transylvania,  and  Serbia,  and  even  to 
Switzerland  and  Italy.  They  got  powder  from 
Holland,  Poland,  and  Russia ;  saltpetre  from  Bo- 
hemia, Silesia,  and  Hungary;  weapons  from 
Styria  and  Carinthia;  linen  from  Holland;  wool 
from  Bohemia;  horses  and  rafts  from  Salzburg 
and  Bavaria ;  corn  from  Bamberg,  Mayence,  and 
Treves ;  wine  from  the  Rhine  and  Moselle ;  brandy 
from  Moravia.  Here  again  it  was  the  disper- 
sion of  the  Jews  which  enabled  them  to  conduct 
such  extensive  operations,  and  their  connection 
with  the  Leipzig  fairs  doubtless  assisted  them  in 
this  wide  net-work  of  transactions. 


^  See  the  admirable  monograph  of  M.  Grunwald,  Samuel 
Oppenlieimer  und  sein  Kreis,  Leipzig,  1913,  which  gives,  in  an 
elaborate  table  opposite  page  160,  the  advances  made  year  by 
year  by  the  various  Jewish  firms. 

234 


JEWS    AND    CAPITALISM 

It  should  perhaps  be  mentioned  that,  after 
1740,  the  center  of  Jewish  finance  was  trans- 
ferred from  Vienna  to  London,  as  was  Indicated 
by  the  migration  of  Moses  D'Aguilar  to  the  lat- 
ter city.  Here  a  number  of  Amsterdam  Jews  had 
come  over  with  William  III,  and  helped  to  trans- 
fer the  bullion  trade  in  particular  from  Amster- 
dam to  London.  In  1745  Sampson  Gideon,  their 
chief  representative,  helped  the  British  Govern- 
ment by  his  firm  attitude  during  the  advance  of 
the  Young  Pretender,  as  he  had  previously  done 
during  the  South  Sea  Bubble,  In  which,  be  It  re- 
corded, Jews  had  nothing  to  do,  nor  with  Law 
of  the  Mississippi  Scheme.  As  a  reward,  the 
Government  brought  In  the  Jew  bill  of  1753, 
giving  the  English  Jews  rights  of  naturalization, 
but  this  had  to  be  withdrawn  during  the  follow- 
ing year  owing  to  the  clamor  of  the  populace.  A 
large  number  of  the  Sephardic  families  of  Lon- 
don became  converted  in  despair,  but  their  con- 
nection with  the  Royal  Exchange  still  continued, 
and  the  brothers  Goldsmid  became  the  leading 
bullion  brokers  and  private  bankers  of  London 
till  the  end  of  the  century. 

It  should  be  here  remarked  that  the  advances 
by  Jewish   merchants  to   European   monarchs   or 

235 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

governments  in  the  eighteenth  century  were  of 
quite  a  different  character  to  the  tallages  and  aids 
given  by  the  mediseval  Jews  to  the  royal  treas- 
uries of  England,  France,  or  Spain.  These  were 
actual  payments  made  for  the  privilege  of  exist- 
ence in  these  countries,  and  no  one  expected  them 
to  be  repaid  to  the  unfortunate  Jew.  But  the  ad- 
vances made  by  Oppenheimer  and  his  circle  to 
the  Austrian  treasury  were  distinctly  recognized 
as  loans,  and  were  more  or  less  repaid  from  time 
to  time.  By  their  inter-relations  the  Jews  of  Mid- 
Europe  formed  a  connected  banking  association, 
issuing  loans  to  the  various  monarchs  and  oc- 
casionally, as  we  have  seen,  transferring  monies 
from  one  to  the  other.  By  their  intra-national 
operations  they  prepared  the  way  for  the  interna- 
tional finance  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  which 
they  were,  in  large  measure,  pioneers. 

Schmoller  has  shown,  in  one  of  the  most  mas- 
terly of  his  essays,  that,  in  the  money-economy  of 
European  nations,  finance  goes  through  three 
stages :  ( i )  local,  where  towns  try  to  keep  all 
trade  to  themselves  and  treat  other  towns  as  "for- 
eign";  (2)  territorial,  where  this  close  corpora- 
tion is  extended  to  a  number  of  towns;  and, 
finally,    (3)    national,   in   which   customs   and  ex- 

236 


JEWS    AND    CAPITALISM 

cise  and  other  financial  operations  are  conducted 
in  the  service  of  the  whole  state,  chiefly  for 
purposes  of  war/  Jews  had  little  or  nothing  to 
do  with  the  first  two  of  these  stages,  and,  with  re- 
gard to  the  third,  they  are  chiefly  connected  with 
the  war  loans  and  commissariat  of  the  wars  of 
Louis  XIV.  But  there  is  a  further  stage  not  rec- 
ognized, or  at  least  not  emphasized  by  Schmoller, 
in  which  finance  becomes  international,  and  here 
Jews  became  an  influential  factor,  partly  owing  to 
the  continued  monopoly  of  bullion  broking  by  the 
Marrano  families,  but  chiefly  because  of  the 
financial  genius  of  Nathan  Rothschild. 

His  father,  Mayer  Amschel  Rothschild,  a 
money-changer  and  bric-a-brac  dealer  in  Frank- 
fort, became  the  Hof-Jude  of  the  landgrave  of 
Hesse-Cassel,  then  possessed  of  the  largest  pri- 
vate fortune  in  Europe,  derived  mainly  from  the 
hire  of  Hessians  to  quell  the  American  Revolu- 
tion. Rothschild  had  helped  the  landgrave  to  in- 
vest this  money  in  Frankfort  city  loans  and  in 
the  Danish  state  debt.  Meanwhile  his  son  Na- 
than, after  a  successful  career  as  manufacturer  of 
Manchester  goods  for  seven  years,  had  settled  in 

*  G.    Schmoller,    The  Mercantile   System,   in   W.   J.   Ashley's 
Economic  Classics  (New  York,  1894). 

237 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

London  in  1805,  and  married  a  sister-in-law  of 
Sir  Moses  Montefiore,  and  thus  became  connected 
with  the  Sephardic  bullion-brokers  of  London. 
When  therefore  the  grand  duke  of  Hesse-Cassel 
had  to  flee  from  his  duchy  after  Jena,  it  was  nat- 
ural that  his  agent  should  transmit  the  "running 
cash"  of  the  landgrave  to  his  son  Nathan  at  Lon- 
don, who  immediately  utilized  it  by  buying  bul- 
lion for  Lord  Wellesley,  about  to  begin  his 
Peninsular  campaign.  The  deaths  of  Abraham 
Goldsmid  and  Sir  Francis  Baring,  in  18 10,  left 
Nathan  Rothschild  undisputed  master  of  the  bul- 
lion market  in  London,  and  all  the  payments  made 
to  the  Continent  by  England  during  the  struggle 
with  Napoleon — reckoned  to  amount  to  £15,000,- 
000  from  1808  to  1 8 14 — were  made  through 
him.  After  his  father's  death,  in  18 12,  he  ar- 
ranged for  the  establishment  of  branches  of  the 
firm  in  Paris,  Vienna,  and  Naples,  and  from  18 18 
onward  the  five  brothers  were  the  chief  medium 
through  which  the  governments  of  Europe  issued 
their  loans  for  the  next  thirty  years,  during  which 
they  amounted  to  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  billion 
dollars.^ 

'  Ehrenberg  suggests  that  the_v  obtained  the  capital  for  these 
loans  by  the  profits  in  bullion  broking  before  Waterloo,  and  in 

238 


JEWS    AND    CAPITALISM 

The  example  of  the  Rothschilds  In  thus  estab- 
lishing brothers  in  different  European  capitals  was 
followed  by  other  Jewish  families  like  the  Sterns, 
Speyers,  Lazards,  Oppenheims,  Warburgs,  and 
Seligmans.  These  sometimes  joined  in,  but  at 
other  times  competed  with  the  Rothschilds  in  is- 
suing numerous  loans  for  industrial  purposes  in 
Europe  during  the  period  1818-48.  After  the 
latter  date  the  practice  of  issuing  loans  through 
favored  firms  was  mostly  given  up,  and  the  sub- 
scriptions were  thrown  open  to  the  general  pub- 
lic. At  the  same  time  the  joint-stock  principle 
was  introduced  Into  banks,  and  institutions  like 
the  Credit  Mobllier,  the  Dresdener  Bank,  and  the 
Deutsche  Bank  were  founded  mostly  by  combi- 
nations of  Jewish  firms,  which  considerably  re- 
duced the  predominance  of  the  Rothschilds  in  the 
financial  world  but  increased  the  general  influence 
of  Jews  In  International  finance. 

It  would,  however,  be  a  mistake  to  regard  all 
these  Jewish  firms  as  acting  together.  Heine  re- 
fers to  Rothschild  and  Fuld  as  "Two  rabbis  of 
finance,  who  were  as  much  opposed  to  one  another 

the  four  years,  1815-18,  by  "bearing"  operations  against  the  loans 
issued  by  Ouvrard  and  Baring  on  behalf  of  the  French  and 
British  Governments,  who  were  therefore  obliged  to  admit  the 
Rothschilds  into  the  loan-issuing  "ring"  from  1818  onwards. 

239 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

as  Hlllel  and  Shammai";  and  in  much  later  days 
the  opposition  of  the  firms  of  Montagu  and  Roths- 
child was  equally  marked  in  London.     The  Sterns 
obtained  the  Portuguese  loans  in  opposition  to  the 
Rothschilds,    and    the    Pereires    were    successful 
against   them    in   getting   the   concession    for   the 
South  Russian  railways.     Yet  in  France  the  pre- 
dominance of  the  Rothschilds  was  so  marked  that 
as  early  as   1848  it  was  reckoned  that  the  Paris 
house  was  worth  six  hundred  million   francs,   as 
against  three  hundred  and  sixty-two  millions  pos- 
sessed by  the   rest  of  the  Parisian  bankers.      In 
1876  an  attempt  to  check  this  predominance  was 
started  by  a   number   of   Catholic   families,   who 
founded    the    Union    Generale,    which,    however, 
failed  disastrously  in    1885,   causing  the   ruin  of 
many  noble  French  families  and  being  the  secret 
origin  of  the  anti-Semitism  which  broke  out  im- 
mediately    afterwards.^       The     failure     of     the 
Barings  in  1893  brought  to  an  end  the  rivalry  of 
seventy  years  between   "Jew   Rothschild  and  his 
fellow-Christian  Baring,"  referred  to  by  Byron  in 
his  Don  Juan   (xii,  5);  but  here  the  Rothschilds 
intervened,  and  prevented  the  utter  ruin  of  their 
rivals.     As  a  consequence,  the  firm  was  left  pre- 

*  The  struggle  is  graphically  described  by  Zola  in  his  L' Argent. 
240 


JEWS    AND    CAPITALISM 

dominant  in  the  financial  world  in  London  and 
the  British  empire. 

It  would,  however,  be  misleading  to  regard  the 
Jewish  element  in  international  finance  as  increas- 
ing in  importance  during  the  nineteenth  century; 
on  the  contrary,  it  probably  reached  its  maximum 
in  1848,  when  the  third  French  Revolution  re- 
duced the  importance  of  Baron  James  de  Roth- 
schild (the  Baron  Nucingen  of  Balzac),  and  at 
the  same  time  introduced  the  principle  of  public 
subscription  for  state  loans.  Since  that  time  other 
firms,  English,  French,  and  German,  not  of  the 
Jewish  race,  have  adopted  the  principle  of  estab- 
lishing branches  in  the  different  capitals  of  Europe 
as  well  as  in  the  United  States,  while  the  largest 
accumulations  of  capital  had  been  made  during 
that  period,  not  by  banking  but  by  industrial 
operations.  The  great  capitalists  of  the  world  are 
armament-makers  like  the  Krupps  and  Arm- 
strongs, the  iron  masters  like  Carnegie  and  Whit- 
worth,  the  Standard  Oil  magnates  like  Rocke- 
feller, Frick,  and  Flagler,  the  railway  magnates 
like  the  Vanderbilts,  the  Goulds,  and  the  like.  It 
is  only  quite  recently  that  a  few  German  Jews 
have  become  prominent  in  the  industrial  world, 
like  the  Monds  in  the  chemical  industries,  Ballin 

241 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

in  ship-building,  Rathenau  in  the  electrical  in- 
dustries, and  Friedlander-Fuld  in  coal. 

Jewish  finance  had,  however,  a  certain  influ- 
ence on  the  beginnings  of  railways  in  continental 
Europe.  The  Rothschilds  financed  the  great 
Northern  Railway  of  France  and  the  Nordbahn 
of  Austria,  the  Bischoffheims  the  railway  system 
of  Belgium,  the  Pereires  the  Southern  Railways 
of  Russia,  with  which  the  Poliakoffs  and  Brodskys 
were  also  connected.  Baron  de  Hirsch  founded 
his  great  fortune  by  establishing  the  railway  sys- 
tem of  the  Balkans,  and  the  Bleichroeders  had 
much  to  do  with  the  Prussian  railway  system  be- 
fore it  was  taken  over  by  the  Government.  In 
America  the  firm  of  Kuhn,  Loeb  &  Co.  have  done 
much  toward  combining  the  interests  of  the  vari- 
ous railway  systems,  and  were,  for  a  time,  the 
bankers  of  the  Harriman  lines,  extending  over 
fifty  thousand  miles,  and  amounting  to  twelve 
billion  dollars.  But  the  last-named  firm  has 
recently  withdrawn  from  its  railway  connec- 
tions, and  the  participation  of  the  others  is  now  in 
the  past,  often  in  the  long  past.  Jewish  finance 
appears  to  run  more  particularly  into  the  pioneer 
trades,  where  profits  are  at  first  more  promising. 

This  may  account  for  their  relative  importance 
242 


JEWS   AND   CAPITALISM 

in  the  early  stages  of  the  British  colonial  em- 
pire, though  it  would  be  entirely  misleading  to 
attribute  to  them  any  predominant  influence;  the 
relative  smallness  of  their  numbers  would  have 
been  enough  to  prevent  this.  In  South  Australia 
the  firm  of  Montefiore  was  an  influential  element 
in  the  early  years  of  the  colony,  and  in  New  Zea- 
land Sir  Julius  Vogel  gave  a  great  impulse  by  his 
bold  poHcy  of  attracting  British  capital  to  the 
development  of  the  colony.  In  South  Africa  the 
Mosenthals  were  the  chief  factors  in  developing 
the  wool  and  hide  trades,  and  originated  the  mo- 
hair industry,  which  now  controls  half  the 
world's  output;  and  the  brothers  De  Pass  were 
for  many  years  the  largest  ship-owners  in  Cape 
Town.  In  Natal,  Nathaniel  Isaacs  was  appointed, 
in  1828,  "principal  chief,"  with  sole  rights  of 
trafl'ic  with  the  Zulus,  by  Tchaka,  the  so-called 
Napoleon  of  South  Africa.  In  the  Transvaal, 
Samuel  Marks,  Barnett  Barnato,  and  the  firm  of 
Wernher,  Beit  &  Co.,  have  been  large  factors  in 
the  development  of  the  diamond  industry.  In 
Canada,  the  Joseph  family  were  prominent  in  the 
early  development  of  the  Canadian  railway  sys- 
tem. 

With  regard  to  the  West-Indian  colonies,  ref- 
243 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

erence  has  already  been  made  to  the  large  par- 
ticipation of  Jews  in  the  sugar  trade,  their  chief 
output.  They  practically  monopolized  the  Ja- 
maica trade  in  sugar,  rum,  and  molasses  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  At  that  time 
a  number  of  Jews  who  had  settled  in  Newport, 
R.  I.,  where  the  tolerant  principles  of  Roger 
Williams  still  ruled,  did  extensive  business  with 
the  West-Indian  islands.  Aaron  Lopez  owned 
at  one  time  as  many  as  thirty  vessels.  Jacob 
Rivera  introduced  there  the  manufacture  of 
spermacetti.  So,  too,  Abraham  de  Lyon  intro- 
duced viticulture  into  Georgia,  where  also  Dr. 
Nunes  largely  developed  the  growth  of  indigo. 
In  California,  Jewish  firms  had  much  to  do  with 
the  early  development  of  the  country,  and  espe- 
cially with  the  connection  of  that  state  with  Alaska 
and  its  seal  fisheries,  which  have  been  largely  de- 
veloped by  Jewish  firms.  These  are  almost  the 
sole  examples  of  pioneer  influence  of  Jews  in 
American  commerce,  and  would  form  but  an  in- 
finitesimal fraction  of  its  whole  vast  extension. 
In  more  recent  developments,  however,  Jews  play 
some  considerable  part  in  copper  mining  and 
smelting  (the  firms  of  Guggenheim  and 
Lewisohn),  in  the  peculiarly  American  establish- 

244 


JEWS    AND    CAPITALISM 

ments  known  as  department  stores,  and  In  the 
clothing  industries,  which  they  practically  monop- 
olize/ 

To  sum  up,  the  influence  of  Jews  on  the  vast 
extension  of  modern  commerce  has  been  mainly 
due  to  their  international  connections,  which 
enable  them  to  transfer  goods  and  bullion  from 
one  country  to  another  with  the  least  risk.  The 
scattering  of  the  Marranos  throughout  the  Span- 
ish empire,  just  when  the  large  production  of 
the  precious  metals  in  America  gave  an  enormous 
impetus  to  European  commerce,  tended  to  throw 
the  bullion  trade  into  their  hands;  this  was  the 
more  important,  as  from  1600  to  1750  the  whole 
financial  policy  of  Europe  was  ruled  by  the  mer- 
cantile system,  based  on  the  desirability  of  re- 
taining as  much  gold  as  possible  within  the 
country.  In  Mid-Europe  the  restriction  of  Jew- 
ish activity  to  money-lending,  pawn-broking,  and 
the  second-hand  trade  generally  threw  Into  their 
hands  much  of  the  loot  of  the  numerous  wars  of 
the  seventeenth   century,   and  caused  them  to  be 

^  See  J.  E.  Pope,  The  Clothing  Industry  in  Neiv  York,  Colum- 
bia, Mo.,  1905.  It  was  necessary  to  go  into  some  detail  on 
Jewish  commercial  activities  in  the  United  States  owing  to  the 
exaggerations  indulged  in  with  regard  to  this  by  Sorabart.  (See 
infra,  p.  247,  seq.) 

245 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS   TO    CIVILIZATION 

Utilized  as  commissaries  and  court  factors  by  the 
various  German  princes.  By  this  means  they  had 
some  Influence  on  the  general  development  of  na- 
tional finance  In  the  German  principalities,  as 
opposed  to  the  territorial  and  local  stages  which 
preceded  their  participation.  Their  wide  disper- 
sion led  to  their  comparatively  large  share  in  the 
Leipzig  and  other  fairs,  which  may  have  helped 
toward  the  stabilizing  of  European  prices.  The 
wandering  habits  thus  induced  were  a  preparation 
for  the  relatively  large  share  of  Jews  in  the  early 
stages  of  colonial  expansion;  but  here,  as  else- 
where, the  Jews  shared  in  modern  movements  and 
did  not  monopolize  them. 


246 


CHAPTER  VII  ^ 

Excursus  on  Sombart 

The  preceding  account  of  Jewish  influence  on 
modern  capitalism  would  have  to  be  much  en- 
larged if  one  could  trust  the  analysis  of  it  made 
by  Prof.  Werner  Sombart  in  his  Die  Jiiden  imd 
das  fVirtschaftslehen}  According  to  him,  all 
the  predominant  features  which  distinguish  mod- 
ern capitalism  from  mediseval  trade  and  industry 
are  directly  due  to  Jewish  influence.  Thus,  the 
economic  form  of  the  modern  state  was  due  to 
the  activities  of  the  Jews  as  purveyors  and  finan- 
ciers, in  providing  the  state  with  capital  for  war 
nnd  development  (I,  v).  They  helped  con- 
siderably in  the  foundation  of  modern  colonies, 
which  has  determined  the  policy  and  controlled 
the  development  of  modern  states  (I,  iv),  and 
quickened   international  trade  by  the  large   scale 

^Leipzig,  1911.  Translation  by  M.  Epstein,  1913,  The  Jeios 
and  Modern  Capitalism. 

247 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

of  their  trade,  the  variety  of  their  wares,  and  the 
introduction  of  new  commodities  (I,  iii).  As  a 
consequence,  we  find  the  centers  of  trade  chang- 
ing from  one  country  or  center  to  another,  ac- 
cording as  Jews  were  expelled  or  found  shelter; 
Sombart  gives  as  examples  the  transference  of 
trade  from  Spain  to  Holland,  from  Antwerp  to 
Amsterdam,  from  Augsburg  to  Frankfort  and 
Hamburg  (I,  ii).  Above  all,  Jews  have  trans- 
formed economic  life  in  commercializing  it  by 
creating  credit  instruments  and  introducing  the 
custom  of  buying  and  selling  securities,  which 
supplied  mobile  capital  for  industrial  undertak- 
ings (I,  v)  ;  they  thereby  introduced  their  capi- 
talistic point  of  view  into  modern  trade,  with 
its  competitive  (against  "just")  prices,  its  adver- 
tisements, adulterations,  payment  by  instalments, 
utilization  of  waste  products,  and  general  effi- 
ciency   (I,   vii). 

This  would  indeed  be  a  formidable  debt  owed 
to  Jewish  influence  by  the  modern  world,  if  the 
whole  foundation  of  its  economic  life  had  been 
determined  or  even  largely  influenced  by  Jews. 
But  it  is  to  be  feared  that  they  cannot  lay  such 
a  flattering  unction  to  their  souls  (if  Prof. 
Sombart   will   grant   that   they  have   souls).      In 

24S 


EXCURSUS    ON    SOMBART 

the  first  place  it  is  curious  to  find  the  author  of 
a  standard  work  on  modern  capitalism  so  mis- 
leading or  misled  as  to  its  true  characteristics. 
As  Mr.  J.  A.  Hobson  points  out  in  his  Evolu- 
tion of  Modern  Capitalism,  1894,  the  essence  of 
this  is  the  employment,  by  persons  with  money 
capital,  of  hired  men,  generally  known  as  "hands," 
for  production  on  a  large  scale  by  means  of  ma- 
chines; hence  he  terms  his  subject  "A  Study  of 
Machine  Production."  The  main,  indeed  ex- 
clusive, motive  of  the  capitalist,  or  "undertaker," 
is  to  obtain  profits  ("Unternehmergewinn,"  the 
Germ.ans  call  it)  ;  and  hence  he  is  called  by  his 
Socialist  opponents  a  "profiteer."  The  method 
by  which  this  profit  is  determined  is  by  the  re- 
lations of  supply  and  demand  in  an  open  market 
accessible  to  all  capitalists  under  the  stress  of 
unrestricted  competition.  Here  comes  in  the 
contrast  with  medieval  conditions,  in  which  prices, 
and  therefore  profits,  were  regulated  and  made 
customary  by  the  state  or  local  authorities  on  the 
Canon  Law  principle  of  a  "just  price,"  and  com- 
petition was  restricted  or  rather  removed  by  the 
veto  on  usury  or  money-lending  and  by  the  regu- 
lations  of   guilds   or   close   trade   and   mercantile 

corporations. 

249 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Now  the  cause  of  this  transition  from  regu- 
lated and  customary  prices  to  competitive  ones 
is  the  best  known  and  most  fundamental  phe- 
nomenon in  economic  history.  It  is  known  as  the 
Industrial  Revolution,  and  began  in  England  in 
the  quarter  of  a  century  between  1760  and  1785, 
with  numerous  inventions  in  the  machines  of  the 
textile  industries,  and  the  introduction  of  steam 
produced  by  sea-coal  as  a  motive  power.  Jews 
had  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  this,  for  there 
is  not  a  single  name  of  a  Jewish  manufacturer 
known  in  England  before  1798,  when  Nathan 
Rothschild  began  his  short  career  as  a  manufac- 
turer of  Manchester  goods  and,  though  fairly 
successful,  gave  it  up,  after  seven  years,  for 
bullion  broking  upon  settling  in  London  in  1805. 
The  Jews  did  not  even  begin  to  settle  in  Birming- 
ham, Liverpool,  or  Manchester  until  about  1780, 
and  then  as  pedlars  and  pawn-brokers.  Through- 
out the  eighteenth  century  the  Jews  of  England 
did  not  number  one-tenth  of  i  per  cent  of  the 
population,  and  nineteen-twentieths  of  them 
were  concentrated  in  London,  which  was  never 
predominantly  a  manufacturing  town.  The  Jews 
were  either  business  men,  bullion  brokers,  pedlars, 
or  pawn-brokers. 

250 


EXCURSUS    ON    SOMBART 

Nor  is  there  any  evidence  of  any  activity  of 
Jews  in  the  spread  of  industriahsm  or  capitalism 
from  England  to  the  Continent  or  to  America. 
No  Jewish  name  occurs  among  the  manufac- 
turers who  attempted  to  carry  out  Napoleon's 
protectionist  schemes  in  France  or  even  in  the 
Confederation  of  the  Rhine. ^  Even  Prof.  Som- 
bart,  who  gives  an  entirely  imaginary  picture 
of  Jewish  participation  among  the  early  Amer- 
ican pioneers,^  does  not  contend  that  Jews  were 
at  all  actively  engaged  in  American  manufacture 
in  its  early  stages.^  There  were  probably  not 
over  two  thousand  Jews  in  the  whole  of  the 
United  States  by  1800,  out  of  a  population  of 
five  millions,  and  nine-tenths  of  these  were  settled 
in  Charleston,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Lan- 
caster.    In  attempting  to  make  out  that  this  hand- 

*  SchmoUer,  however,  declares  that  the  Berlin  silk  manufac- 
tories had  French  and  Jewish  factors,  and  that  afterwards  they 
were  developed  by  Jewish  manufacturers,  the  Mendelssohns, 
Friedlanders,  Veits,  and  Marcuses  {loc.  cit.,  p.  89). 

'^  Loc.  cit. 

^  Their  participation  in  the  sugar  industry  was  not  really  of 
a  capitalistic  nature,  since  it  was  entirely  based  upon  slave 
labor.  Socialists  may  term  the  modern  "hand"  a  slave,  but  he 
can  at  least  change  his  employer  or  go  on  strike  and  thus  employ 
the  weapon  of  competition,  characteristic  of  the  capitalistic 
system. 

251 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

ful  of  merchants  had  the  Hon's  share  in  the  eco- 
nomic development  of  England  or  America,  Prof. 
Sombart  is  emulating  Lord  Dundreary  in  at- 
tempting to  make  the  tail,  or,  one  would  say, 
rather,  the  tip  of  the  tail,  wag  the  lion. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is.  Prof.  Sombart, 
in  overriding  his  hobby,  has  vastly  exaggerated 
the  part  played  by  Jews  in  modern  economic  de- 
velopment. That  part,  as  we  have  seen  in  the 
preceding  chapter,  consisted  in  promoting  inter- 
national trade  and  supplying,  in  a  relatively  large 
measure,  the  bullion  that  balanced  it.  Now,  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  in  England,  external  com- 
merce was  by  no  means  a  predominant  part  oi 
the  whole  English  output.  Macpherson,  in  his 
Annals  of  Commerce,  reckoned  the  export  trade 
to  be  about  one  in  thirty-two  of  the  whole  out- 
put, and  even  at  the  present  day  it  is  not  more 
than  a  fifth.  In  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  the  total  exports  of  England  were  about 
£15,000,000,  and  the  total  income  of  the  Jew- 
ish community  of  London  was  estimated  at  half 
a  million,  implying  at  that  time  a  turnover  of 
two  millions.  The  commercial  classes  at  that 
time  were  estimated  by  Arthur  Young  to  con- 
stitute   seven    hundred   thousand   souls    out    of   a 

252 


EXCURSUS    ON    SOMBART 

total  population  of  eight  million  and  a  half.  If 
these  figures  were  at  all  accurate,  the  Jews  of 
England,  while  they  may  have  controlled  one- 
eighth  of  the  foreign  commerce,  only  manipu- 
lated half  of  I  per  cent  of  the  total  business 
of  the  country,  which  was,  at  that  time,  estab- 
lishing the  capitalistic  system  destined  to  rule  the 
world.  When  put  into  figures.  Prof.  Sombart's 
visionary  estimates  tend  rather  to  disappear. 

A  remarkable  instance  of  this  has  been  given 
by  H.  Waetjen  in  his  study  of  Sombart's  state- 
ments about  Jewish  participation  in  modern  col- 
onization.^ Sombart  had  asserted  that  the  Jews 
had  much  to  do  with  the  founding  of  the  Dutch 
East  India  Company  in  1602,  which,  we  have 
seen,  was  practically  the  beginning  of  the  mod- 
ern joint-stock  method  of  trading.  Waetjen  has 
ascertained,  from  an  examination  of  the  books 
of  the  company,  that  of  the  first  subscription  of 
six  and  a  half  millions  of  florins  the  Jewish  con- 
tribution consisted  of  4,800  florins,  or  less  than 
a  tenth  of  i  per  cent.  He  also  shows  that 
Sombart  is  entirely  mistaken  in  stating  that  the 
first  governor   of   Java   was   a   Jew,    and   indeed 

^  H.  Waetjen,  Das  Judentum  unci  die  Anfaenge  der  modern 
Kolonisation,  Berlin,  1914. 

253 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

shows  that  no  Jew  was  allowed  to  become  a 
higher  official  of  the  company,  and  not  even  a 
director  of  It.  As  regards  the  English  East  India 
Company,  Jews  were  excluded  from  all  the  "reg- 
ulated companies."  ^  Similarly  with  regard  to 
the  Dutch  West  India  Company,  founded  In 
1 62 1,  which  was,  to  some  degree,  helped  by  the 
Brazilian  Jews;  but  the  total  contribution  of  the 
eighteen  Amsterdam  Jews,  who  subscribed  to 
Its  seven  million  capital  In  1623,  was  only  thirty- 
six  thousand  florins,  about  half  of  i  per  cent. 
Here  again  we  find  gross  exaggeration  on  the 
part  of  Prof.  Sombart. 

As  regards  the  claim  that  the  economic  form 
of  the  modern  state  Is  due  to  Jewish  finance  and 
army-purveying  (Sombart,  I,  v),  we  have  seen 
above  that  this  began,  without  any  participation 
by  Jews,  In  the  era  of  the  Fuggers,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  modern  history,  when  France  at- 
tempted to  put  forth  claims  to  territorial  ag- 
grandizement In  Italy  and  began  the  century- 
long  conflict  between  the  Bourbons  and  the  Haps- 
burgs.  Similarly,  their  participation  in  modern 
colonization    (I,    iv)    had   been    reduced    to    its 

^  Cunningham,   Groivth  of  English   Trade,  Cambridge,   1892, 
vol.  ii,  p.  283. 

254 


EXCURSUS    ON    SOMBART 

proper  proportions  in  the  preceding  chapter,  and 
the  introduction  of  new  wares  and  international 
trade,  on  which  Sombart  lays  so  much  stress 
(I,  iii),  has  been  roughly  noted  above,  and  is 
far  from  significant  when  one  recalls  the  long 
tariff  lists  of  modern  International  trade. 

There  Is  the  same  want  of  historical  founda- 
tion with  regard  to  Sombart's  claim  that  the 
Jews  Invented  the  chief  Instruments  of  credit  and 
began  the  practice  of  buying  and  selling  them 
(I,  vi).  He  himself  owns  that  he  has  no  definite 
proof  of  the  Jewish  origin  of  the  Bill  of  Ex- 
change, and  his  seemingly  striking  connection  of 
the  Polish  Jewish  form  of  that  document  known 
as  the  "Mamran,"  with  similar  talmudic  Instru- 
ments, has  been  shown  by  Steckelmacher  ^  to  be 
erroneous,  and  that  the  very  name,  Instead  of 
being  Hebrew,  is  simply  a  corruption  of  "mem- 
brana,"  while  the  words  of  the  Instrument  itself 
speak  of  Its  conferring  **the  same  rights  as  the 
bills  of  exchange  which  are  usual  In  the  royal 
courts."  As  regards  the  rise  of  the  Bourses  with 
speculation   In   "futures"  ^  and  trading  In   instru- 

*  M.    Steckelmacher,    Randbemerkungen   zu   Werner  Sombart, 
Berlin,  1912,  p.  8. 

"They   were   frankly   called   "Apuestas,"   or   wagers,   on   the 
Antwerp  Bourse.     See  Ehrenberg,   op.  cit.,  i,  p.  81, 

255 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS   TO    CIVILIZATION 

ments  of  credit,  we  have  seen  that  all  this  arose  in 
Antwerp  and  London  before  Jews  existed  there. 
Sombart  further  confuses  the  Royal  Exchange  of 
London,  founded  in  1572,  with  its  Stock  Ex- 
change, which  only  came  Into  existence  in  1780. 
The  twelv-e  Jewish  brokers  allowed  on  the  former 
were  mainly  bullion  brokers.  As  Jews  did  such 
little  trade  in  manufactures,  it  is  highly  im- 
probable that  advertisements  began  with  them, 
and  Sombart  only  quotes  a  casual  instance.  The 
utilization  of  waste  products  is  again  a  by- 
product of  manufacture  on  a  large  scale,  with 
the  initial  stages  of  which  Jews  had  nothing  to 
do.  As  hawkers  or  dealers  they  may  have  in- 
troduced the  practice  of  payment  by  instalments, 
but  Sombart  gives  no  reliable  evidence  of  this, 
and  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  Jews  were  not 
the  only  pedlars  on  the  beach. 

Finally,  as  regards  Sombart's  curious  conten- 
tion that  the  presence  of  Jews  was  the  cause  of 
the  transference  of  trade  hegemony  from  one 
town  or  country  to  another,  this  is  surely  a  case 
of  inverting  the  position  of  the  cart  and  the 
horse.  The  Jews  followed  the  trade,  and  not 
the  trade  the  Jews.  They  naturally  resorted  to 
any  open  markets  where  their  transactions  would 

256 


EXCURSUS    ON    SOMBART 

not  be  hampered  by  the  price  restrictions  of  the 
guilds  which  they  were  not  allowed  to  join. 
Other  and  much  more  profound  reasons  can  be 
given  for  the  transference  of  the  Venetian  trade 
supremacy  to  Spain  and  Portugal,  and  thence  to 
Holland  and  England.^  How  would  Prof.  Som- 
bart  explain  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  Hanseatic 
League  by  his  Jewish  hobby,  when,  for  the  most 
part,  there  were  no  Jews  at  all  in  the  Hanse 
towns?  The  small  part  taken  by  the  Jewish 
Marranos  in  transferring  trade  supremacy  from 
the  Iberian  Peninsula  to  the  Netherlands  is  the 
only  germ  of  truth  in  this  part  of  his  position. 

When  a  professor  of  economics  is  so  lax 
about  his  economic  facts  and  history,  it  would 
be  idle  to  expect  him  to  be  more  profound  in 
his  incursions  into  the  much  more  complex  prob- 
lems of  Jewish  theology  and  racial  psychology. 
Yet  the  historical  part  of  Prof.  Sombart's  work, 
which  fills  the  first  one  hundred  and  fifty  pages 
of  his  book  (in  the  English  edition),  is  followed 
by  another  couple  of  hundred  pages,  tracing  this 
alleged    connection    between    Jews    and    modern 

'  See  Roscher,  Handel  iind  Geiverbe,  third  edition,   1882,  pp. 
82-7. 

257 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

capitalism  to  even  more  imaginary  characteris- 
tics of  the  Jewish  race  and  even  of  the  Jewish 
religion. 

According  to  Sombart,  Jews  were  particularly 
adapted  for  their  role  as  founders  of  mod- 
ern capitalism  owing  to  their  dispersion  and  posi- 
tion as  alien  semi-citizens  having  great  wealth 
(II,  x).  Even  the  religion  of  the  Jew  deter- 
mined his  capacity  for  economic  life,  being 
rationalistic,  legalistic,  and  non-mystical.  The 
conception  of  sin  in  Judaism,  according  to  Som- 
bart, is  quite  commercial  in  character,  the  sole 
motive  for  holiness  being  the  reward  in  the  world 
to  come.  The  rational  aspect  of  Jewish  life  also 
led  to  its  commercialization  owing  to  the  self- 
control  preached  by  it  (II,  xi)  ;  even  the  isola- 
tion of  Israel  has  helped  commercially  by  re- 
moving all  sentiment  from  business  with 
"strangers,"  and  making  the  Jews  the  apostles  of 
Laissez-faire.  Sombart  notices  the  remarkable 
resemblance  of  Jews  and  Puritans  in  this  regard,^ 
and  yet  contends  that  there   is  something  racial 

^  He  owns  indebtedness  in  this  regard  to  the  book  of  Max 
Weber  on  "Puritanism  and  Capitalism,"  which  led  to  his  apply- 
ing the  same  arguments  to  Jews.  But,  if  so,  how  can  there  be 
any  racial  element  in  the  connection? 

258 


EXCURSUS    ON    SOMBART 

in  the  tendency  of  Jews  toward  commerce  be- 
cause of  their  intellectuality,  energy,  and  adapt- 
ability (II,  xii).  Prof,  Sombart  decides  that  the 
Jews  were  not  originally  a  commercial  people, 
but  have,  throughout  the  ages,  been  money- 
lenders; even  the  Talmud  shows  a  remarkable 
knowledge  of  money  transactions  (III,  xiii)  ;  and 
all  this,  according  to  him,  bears  a  trace  of  the 
original  desert  origin  of  the  Jewish  race,  which 
Is  comparatively  pure.  This  desert  origin  is  the 
key  to  their  nomadic  tendencies,  and  even  ac- 
counts for  their  predilection  for  city  life,  since 
modern  cities  are  great  deserts!  (Ill,  xiv). 

This  farrago  of  fantasies  about  Jewish  life 
and  religion  scarcely  deserves  serious  considera- 
tion, especially  as  we  have  seen  that  it  is  put  for- 
ward to  explain  a  series  of  facts  which  are  either 
non-existent  or  grossly  exaggerated.  As  regards 
the  "new"  view^  that  Jewish  aptitude  for  finance 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  they  were,  from  the  in- 
ception of  their  national  life,  money-lenders,  it  is 
sufficient  to  point  out  that,  during  the  first  thou- 
sand years  of  Israelite  national  existence,  there 
was  no  coined  money.  Before  the  period  of 
the    Maccabseans   the   basis   of   the   national   life 

^  Loc.  cit.,  p.  301. 

259 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

was  a   self-contained   agricultural   economy  which 
needed    no    money.      Again    the    alleged    desert 
origin    of  Jewish    characteristics    is   merely   a   be- 
lated echo  of  Renan,  and  is  based  upon  an  utter 
misunderstanding  of  the  ethnological  connections 
of  the  Jewish  race.   While  they  adopted  a  Semitic 
language     on    settling    in     Canaan,     their     racial 
affinities  were  much  closer  with  the  broad-headed 
and   mountainous   Armenians,   whom   they   resem- 
ble   in    face    and    expression    even   at   the    present- 
day.^     As  regards  the  absence  of  mysticism  from 
Jewish    religion,    this    is    due    merely    to    absence 
of  knowledge   on    Prof.    Sombart's   part.      There 
is    a    mystical    strain    In    Judaism    from    the   time 
of  Ezekiel  and  the   apocalyptic  books  up  to  the 
appearance    of    the    Kabbalah,    which,    we    have 
seen    above,    was    the    main    source    of    Christian 
mysticism    at    the    time    of    the    Renaissance.      It 
was    a    Jewish    philosopher    who    put    forth    the 
mystical  and  supremely  independent  view  that  we 
should  love  God   even  though  He   did  not  love 
us  in  return.^ 

^  It  is  remarkable  in  this  connection  that  Hebrew  tradition 
traces  their  ultimate  origin  to  mount  Ararat. 

°  Spinoza,  Ethics,  I'.  Goethe  v.as  particularly  struck  by  this 
conception  {Dichtinig  und  Wahrlieit),  and  utilized  it  in  his 
Egmont. 

260 


EXCURSUS    ON    SOMBART 

Prof.  Sombart  refers  to  the  Talmud  as  show- 
ing the  legaHstic  and  the  commercial  spirit  of 
the  Jewish  religion;  one  might  just  as  well  make 
the  same  assertion  about  Christianity  on  the 
strength  of  Justinian's  Corpus  Juris,  which  is, 
after  all,  a  Christian  document.  As  in  the  one 
case  reference  would  naturally  be  had  to  the 
"Book  of  Common  Prayer,"  "The  Imitation  of 
Christ,"  and  other  devotional  manuals,  so  Prof. 
Sombart  might  have  obtained  a  more  adequate 
idea  of  Jewish  devotion  by  reading,  in  accessible 
translation,  the  Jewish  Prayer  Book,  not  to  men- 
tion the  Book  of  Psalms,  which  has  given  a 
mode  of  approach  to  the  Divine,  both  for  Jew 
and  Christian.  There  is  a  special  class  of  Jew- 
ish works  which  brings  out  the  purely  ethical 
character  of  the  Jewish  religion  in  a  striking 
manner.  Men  are  most  earnest  at  the  point  of 
death;  and  it  became  a  practice  for  pious  Jews 
to  give  ethical  advice  to  their  children  in  what 
is  known  as  ethical  wills.  Prof.  Sombrat 
would  find  some  difficulty  in  supporting  his  super- 
ficial   views    from    these    productions.^      Now    as 

'  On  these  see  the  interesting  essay  by  Israel  Abrahams,  Jeiuish 
Quarterly  Review,  iii,  pp.  436,  seq. 

261 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

regards  the  contention  that  the  Jewish  religion 
regards  good  works  as  only  the  means  of  obtain- 
ing celestial  profits,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  this 
is  a  natural  and  human  aspect  of  all  the  religions 
of  civilization.  Everybody  knows  how  it  is  em- 
phasized in  Islam,  and  yet  Muhammedans  have 
not  shown  any  particular  genius  for  commerce  or 
finance.  But  in  Christianity  itself  the  whole  doc- 
trine of  Justification  by  Works  is  based  upon  the 
same  conception,  and  what  is  Dante's  Divina 
Commedia  but  a  sublime  and  continuous  ex- 
emplification of  the  connection  of  sublunary  good- 
ness and  badness  with  supernal  rewards  and  pun- 
ishments? Fifty  years  ago  one  of  the  favorite 
evangelical  volumes  of  sermons  was  Binney's 
How  to  Make  the  Best  of  Both  Worlds;  and 
nothing  could  be  more  commercial  than  its  title 
and  tone.  Prof.  Sombart  himself  has  observed 
the  resemblance  between  the  Puritans  and  Jews 
with  regard  to  the  combination  of  piety  with 
business,  and  one  might  add  the  example  of  the 
Quakers,  in  whom  it  was  equally  conspicuous. 
Even  the  Jesuits  proved  themselves  as  much  suc- 
cesses   as    men    of    business    as    they    ultimately 

262 


EXCURSUS    ON    SOMBART 

proved  failures  in  winning  back  the  world  to  their 
Church/ 

Sombart  even  drags  in  the  memoirs  of  Gliickel 
of  Hameln  to  prove  the  commercial  aspects  of 
Jewish  piety,  because  she  is  always  praying  for 
rich  husbands  for  her  daughters.  If  this  were 
conclusive,  the  whole  of  the  French  nobility  with 
their  manages  de  convenance  would  be  convicted 
of  the  same  commercialism.  Poor  Gliickel!  If 
ever  a  womanly  soul  gave  signs  of  the  most  trust- 
ful piety,  showing  the  greatest  confidence  in  the 
designs  of  her  Heavenly  Father,  it  was  surely 
Gliickel,  That  she  was  a  good  business  woman 
as  well  as  a  deeply  pious  soul  is  only  another  in- 
stance of  this  curious  combination  which  is  found 
quite  as  widely  spread  among  Christians  as 
among  Jews.  We  might  easily  parallel  Gliickel 
of  Hameln  by  Thackeray's  picture  of  old  Mrs. 
Newcome,  the  head  of  the  banking-house  and 
the  support  of  evangelical  missions  and  charities. 

It  is  curious  that  Sombart  should  have  made 
these  fundamental  errors  in  explaining  even  the 
small  amount  of  justification  for  connecting  Jews 

^  Where  the  fundamental  arguments  are  so  egregiously  unjus- 
tified by  facts,  it  is  obviously  unnecessary  to  refute  details,  which 
has  been  effectively  done  by  Steckelniacher,  op.  cit.,  and  M. 
Hoffmann,  Judentum  und  Kapitalismus,  Berlin,  1912. 

263 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

with  modern  capitalism,  since  he  has  given  the 
real  reasons — their  being  dispersed  over  a  wide 
area  as  aliens  and  semi-citizens  (II,  x)'.  It  is 
for  him  to  explain  further  how,  if  their  existence 
as  aliens  conduced  to  their  commercial  and  finan- 
cial capacity,  their  position  as  semi-citizens  also 
helped  toward  that  end.  But  we  have  seen  that 
it  was  the  international  dispersion  of  the  Mar- 
ranos  and,  to  some  extent,  of  the  German  Jews 
which  enabled  them  to  perform  their  intermediary 
functions;  and  it  was  religious  persecution,  and 
not  their  desert  origin,  which  caused  both  their 
dispersion  and  their  quasi-alien  status.  In  the 
same  chapter  Som.bart  gives,  as  a  further  reason, 
the  wealth  of  the  Jews,  which  is  a  necessary  basis 
for  his  contention,  but  has  failed  to  consider  the 
fact  that  this  wealth  was  only  found  in  a  few 
hands  even  among  Jews  who,  taken  as  a  whole, 
are  the  poorest  people  having  European  civiliza- 
tion. That  is  a  little  problem  which  may  be  left 
for  Prof.  Sombart  to  work  into  his  wild  theories. 
One  may  also  ask  him  to  explain  how  it  has  come 
about  that,  wherever  the  hand  of  oppression  has 
been  removed  and  the  open  career  has  been 
afforded,  Jews,  with  their  alleged  commercial  in- 
stincts,   have   become   less   and   less    addicted   to 

264 


EXCURSUS    ON    SOMBART 

commercial  pursuits.  The  proportion  of  pro- 
fessional men,  and  indeed  of  artisans,  has  notably 
increased  among  them  during  the  past  century. 

Thus  Prof.  Sombart  fails  to  prove  either  side 
of  his  double  thesis,  the  Jewish  foundation  of 
capitalism  or  the  capitalistic  foundation  of 
Judaism.  His  failure  is  not  surprising,  consid- 
ering that,  notwithstanding  his  industry,  he  shows 
such  want  of  real  insight  into  Jewish  life  or 
thought.  But  it  is  even  more  remarkable  that 
he  makes  such  blunders  in  the  basic  facts  of 
economic  history  in  which  he  ought  to  be  an 
expert.  He  has  evidently  been  obsessed  with 
the  idea  that  the  slogan,  "business  is  business," 
rules  both  Jewish  life  and  religion,  and,  with 
indefatigable  patience,  has  sought  for  every  fact, 
however  minute  or  misleading,  which  could  carry 
out  his  exaggerated  views. ^ 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  example  of  Som- 
bart's  exaggerations  is  shown  in  his  attempt  to 
prove  that  "what  we  call  Americanism  is  noth- 
ing else  than  the  Jewish  spirit  distilled"  (p.  44). 
To  substantiate  this  startling  statement  he  points 

^  His  historical  exaggerations  have  been  pointed  out  by  Below 
in  Hist.  Zeits.,  cviii,  614,  seg.,  as  well  as  F.  Rachfahl  in  Preuss. 
Jahrb.,  cxlvii,  i,  13,  seq. 

265 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

out  a  few  Isolated  facts,  as  that  In  1785  Abra- 
ham Mordecai  settled  In  Alabama,  and  that  In 
1 66 1  Asser  Levi  became  the  owner  of  some 
real  estate  In  Albany.  Chicago,  according  to 
Prof.  Sombart,  Is  fundamentally  Jewish  because 
the  first  brick  house  there  was  built  by  Benedict 
Schubert,  and  Philip  Newburg  Introduced  the 
tobacco  business  there.  He  gives  (p.  44)  an 
elaborate  picture  of  the  pioneers  of  America  going 
forth  to  conquer  the  wilderness  In  batches  of 
twenty  families,  the  twentieth  of  which  started 
the  country  store,  on  which  the  rest  depended 
for  their  supplies,  and  suggests  that  in  most  cases 
this  twentieth  family  was  Jewish.  Now  It  Is 
quite  true  that  the  country  store  was  the  germ 
of  American  business  development,  and  that  all 
the  great  business  leaders  like  Levi  Morton, 
E.  D.  Morgan,  H.  B.  Claflln,  Marshall  Field, 
Pullman,  PUlsbury,  Armour,  J.  D.  Rockefeller, 
and  J.  J.  Hill  received  their  business  training  In 
country  stores;  but  there  Is  absolutely  no  evi- 
dence of  any  large  participation  of  Jews  In  coun- 
try stores  In  early  days,  and  up  to  1850  there 
were  not  enough  of  them  to  go  around,  even  If 
the  country  store  occupied  one  In  a  thousand 
famlhes  Instead  of  being  one  In  twenty.     As  a 

266 


EXCURSUS    ON    SOMBART 

matter  of  fact,  American  Jews  mostly  remained 
In  the  coast  towns  of  the  East,  and  scarcely  a 
handful  joined  the  pioneers  who  settled  in  coun- 
try villages.  It  is  difficult  to  restrain  one's 
patience  when  dealing  with  such  obvious  and 
opinionated  distortions  of  notorious  facts. 


267 


CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Break-down  of  the  Church-Empire 

In  the  preceding  chapter  and  its  appendix,  in 
order  to  dispose  at  once  of  the  more  obvious 
and  more  material  aspects  of  the  subject,  we 
have  considered  the  influence  of  Jews  in  the 
economic  development  of  Western  Europe  up 
to  the  present  day,  whereas  previous  chapters 
were  confined  to  their  intellectual  and  other  in- 
fluence up  to  the  Renaissance.  We  must  now 
retrace  our  steps  and  deal  with  the  relations  of 
Jews  to  the  European  developments  for  the 
three  centuries  between  the  Renaissance  and  the 
French  Revolution.  This  period  is  distinguished 
in  European  history  by  the  break-up  of  the 
Church-Empire,  with  the  fundamental  principle  of 
orthodoxy  as  the  basis  of  citizenship,  which  was 
the  cause,  as  we  have  seen,  of  the  anomalous 
position  of  the  Jews  in  the  European  State  sys- 
tem. It  might  therefore  have  been  anticipated 
that   this   period   would   have   seen   an   ameliora- 

268 


THE     BREAK-DOWN    OF    THE    CHURCH-EMPIRE 

tion  in  the  Jewish  position  and  an  increased 
share  of  Jews  in  the  intellectual  development  of 
the  European  mind.  Yet  these  three  centuries — 
1492-178 1 — saw  the  lowest  condition  of  the  Jew- 
ish people,  politically,  socially,  and  intellectually, 
and  the  Jewish  spirit  probably  reached  its  nadir 
at  the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  1648.  This  is  the 
more  remarkable,  as  the  chief  motive  force  of 
the  period,  the  Reformation,  may  be  regarded 
as  a  revival  of  Hebraism  in  European  affairs,  and 
one  would  have  thought  that  Jews  would  have 
benefited  by  an  appeal  to  their  own  Scriptures, 
which  were  never  so  revered  as  during  this  time; 
the  contrary  was  the  case. 

The  reasons  for  this  were  complex,  and  were 
both  external  and  internal.  The  expulsions  of  the 
preceding  centuries  had  driven  the  Jews  from 
the  lands  of  Western  Europe  and  of  rising  cul- 
ture and  influence  to  those  of  Central  and  East- 
ern Europe,  Germany,  Poland,  and  Turkey, 
destined  to  be  lands  of  internecine  conflict  and 
of  declining  culture.  But  there  was  a  further 
internal  movement  in  European  civilization 
which  rendered  the  position  of  the  Jews  still 
more  precarious,  and,  in  a  measure,  degraded,  in 
the   national    Church-State,    Into    which   the   me- 

269 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

diasval  Church-Empire  broke  up,  than  In  the  Em- 
pire itself.  These  were,  for  a  considerable  time, 
more  theocratic  than  the  papal  Empire  which  had 
been  growing  more  and  more  secularized,  and,  in 
a  measure,  tolerant,  owing  to  the  influence  of 
Humanism  in  Italy. 

The  Reformation  put  a  stop  to  all  this,  and 
revived.  In  all  its  acuteness,  the  animosities  of 
theological  controversy.  Christendom  was  split 
up  Into  an  Infinity  of  sects,  and  the  disputes  of 
Lutherans  and  Zwinglians,  of  Arminlans  and 
Calvlnlsts,  of  Independents  and  Presbyterians,  of 
Jesuits  and  Port-Royalists,  distracted  men's  minds, 
and  aroused  their  bitterest  feelings.  Shakespeare 
might  well  make  Shylock  say:  "See  how  these 
Christians  love  one  another."  And  where  the 
fellow-Christian  was  so  well  hated  the  Jew  could 
less  hope  to  be  tolerated.  Well  might  Bossuet, 
In  his  Histotre  des  Variations,  contend  against 
Protestantism,  that  owing  to  the  multiplication  of 
sects  the  last  state  of  the  Church  was  far  worse 
than  before,  provided,  of  course,  that  the  underly- 
ing assumption  of  the  whole  controversy  were 
granted,  that  any  of  the  conflicting  doctrines  con- 
tained the  only  and  the  whole  truth. 

For  it  was  equally  the  claim  of  each  of  the 
270 


THE    BREAK-DOWN    OF    THE    CHURCH-EMPIRE 

Protestant  persuasions,  as  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic Church,  that  it  alone  held  the  key  to  man's 
salvation.  Each  of  them  also  took  over  from 
Rome  that  conception  of  the  State,  which  re- 
garded it  as  one  of  its  functions  to  safeguard  the 
salvation  of  each  and  all  of  its  citizens.  Hence 
arose  a  Protestant  theory  of  persecution,^  which 
regarded  it  as  part  of  the  State's  duty  to  see  that 
the  souls  of  its  citizens  should  not  be  destroyed 
by  the  moral  contagion  of  heresy,  regarded  as  an 
infectious  spiritual  disease.  The  immediate  re- 
sult of  the  Reformation  was  to  produce  a  num- 
ber of  national  papacies,  in  which  the  monarch 
took  the  place  of  the  pope,  and  claimed  an  equally 
divine  right  to  safeguard  the  souls  of  his  sub- 
jects. Even  in  republics  like  Geneva,  Scotland, 
or  Massachusetts,  this  duty  to  persecute  was  vested 
in  the  magistrate  or  in  an  oligarchic  board  of 
ministers.  Jews  could  not  hope  to  escape,  even 
though  all  sides  recognized  that  they  held  a 
part  of  the  Christian  truth,  for  it  was  equally 
the  contention  of  all  parties  that  the  decisive 
criterion  of  salvation  lay  in  just  these  divergencies 
from  the  common   fund  of  truth.     It  is  curious 

^  See  Lord  Acton's  essay  on  the  Protestant  theory  of  persecu- 
tion in  his  History  of  Freedom  and  Other  Essays,  London,  1909. 

271 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

that  the  contemporary  Jews  had  so  little  influence 
on  the  Reformation  which,  in  a  measure,  might 
be  described  as  a  reversion  to  the  pure  Hebraism 
of  the  Old  Testament  and  a  renunciation  of  the 
Hellenistic  elements  in  the  Church. 

On  the  Reformation  itself  Jews  had  directly 
but  slight  influence.  Reuchlin,  one  of  its  chief 
forerunners,  was,  as  we  have  seen,  convinced  that 
the  surest  foundation  for  the  Christian  truth  was 
to  be  found  in  the  Kabbalah,  and  therefore  de- 
fended the  study  of  the  Talmud  against  the  con- 
vert Pfefferkorn,  and  thus  led  up  to  the  pub- 
lication of  the  Epistola  Obscurorum  Virortim, 
which  was  practically  the  first  skirmish  in  the 
struggle.^  When,  later  on,  Protestants  were 
forced  back  on  the  literal  interpretation  of  the 
Bible  as  their  last  stronghold,  the  question 
whether  the  vowel-points  were  an  integral  part 
of  the  text  came  into  prominence,  and  the  services 
of  Elijah  Levita  were  called  in  to  settle  the  ques- 
tion. Indeed,  throughout  the  whole  controversy 
there  was  an  uneasy  suspicion  that  the  Hebrew 

*  The  best  account  of  the  Epistolce  in  English  still  remains  that 
of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  in  his  Discussions,  pp.  202-38.  See 
also  the  relevant  chapters  in  L.  Geiger's  Joltann  Reuchlin,  Leip- 
zig, 187L 

272 


THE    BREAK-DOWN    OF    THE    CHURCH-EMPIRE 

truth  was  only  possessed  by  Hebrews,  and  the 
chief  Protestant  scholars  had  resort  to  the  in- 
struction of  rabbis  to  ascertain  it.  Throughout 
Western  Europe  a  complete  school  of  Christian 
Hebraists,  among  whom  may  be  mentioned  Hugh 
Broughton,  John  Selden,  and  Lightfoot  in  Eng- 
land, the  Buxtorfs  in  Germany  and  Switzerland, 
and  Surenhus  in  Holland,  made  considerable  study 
of  the  Talmud  and  of  the  post-biblical  literature  of 
the  Jews.  The  two  chief  Protestant  translations 
of  the  Bible,  the  Lutheran  and  King  James' 
Versions,  were  largely  influenced  by  the  Jewish 
commentators — Luther  by  Rashi  through  de 
Lyra's  Postill<f,  and  the  Authorized  Version  by 
Kimhi.  In  several  of  the  controversies  of  the 
day  Jewish  learning  was  called  in  as  arbiter; 
Selden's  great  work  on  tithes  was  based  upon 
rabbinical       sources.  Protestant       theologians 

throughout  North  Europe  consulted  Manasseh 
ben  Israel,  and  even  Pascal's  Pensees  are  full  of 
references  to  Jewish  authorities.  But  the  chief 
theological  controversies  of  the  age,  on  the  author- 
ity of  the  Church  tradition,  on  Justification  by 
Faith,  on  Free  Will,  on  Grace,  on  Original  Sin, 
and  on  Transubstantiation,  dealt  with  topics  for 
the  most  part   outside  the  sphere   of  Jewish   in- 

273 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

fluence,  and  so  far  tended  to  minimize  the  Judaic 
element  in  Christian  theology. 

Curiously  enough  the  most  potent  influence 
was  in  the  political  rather  than  in  the  theological 
sphere,  and  came  direct  from  the  Bible  without 
connection  with  contemporary  Jews.  The  theo- 
cratic and  republican  tone  of  the  Old  Testament 
had  a  wide  influence  on  the  sectaries.  The  short- 
lived rule  of  the  Anabaptists  was  based  entirely 
upon  biblical  models.  I  have  previously  referred 
to  the  biblical  influence  on  Puritan  ideals  of  gov- 
ernment and  social  life,  and  even  upon  their  per- 
sonal names,  and  it  would  be  easy  to  extend  the 
list.^  A  single  concrete  instance  must  suffice 
here.  One  of  the  burning  questions  of  the  age 
was  as  to  the  right  of  relDcllion  against  kings, 
which  seemed  opposed  to  their  divine  right  to 
passive  obedience.  Both  Papalists  and  Puritans 
were  agreed  as  to  the  divine  right,  though  the 
former  contended  that  this  was  "conceded"  and 
conferred  on  kings  by  the  pope.  Yet  the  Jesuits 
needed  some  modification  to  excuse  their  oppo- 
sition to  Henry  IV,  and  the  Puritans  to  legalize, 
from  the  biblical  standpoint,  their  taking  arms 
against   Charles   I.      Both   sides  got   out   of   the 

'  Supra,  chapter  i. 

274 


THE    BREAK-DOWN    OF    THE    CHURCH-EMPIRE 

difficulty  by  the  theory  of  a  double  covenant, 
one  between  the  Lord  and  the  king  and  the 
people,  in  which  God  promised  prosperity  if 
He  were  truly  worshipped;  and  the  other  be- 
tween the  king  and  the  people,  that  he  would  help 
them  in  such  worship;  if  the  second  covenant 
were  broken  the  people  were  released  from  their 
compact.  For  proof  of  such  a  double  covenant, 
both  sides  refer  to  Jehoiada's  making  these  two 
covenants  with  Jehoash/  Incidentally  it  may 
be  mentioned  that  the  notion  of  popular  sover- 
eignty at  the  root  of  such  covenants  was  made 
the  basis  of  the  theory  of  the  original  contract 
between  governrhent  and  people,  which  forms 
the  whole  basis  of  the  theory  of  government  ac- 
cording to  Locke  and  Rousseau,  which  was  the 
motive  force  of  the  English,  the  American,  and 
the  French  Revolutions.  A  further  instance,  how 
biblical  texts  were  regarded  as  decisive  in  deter- 
mining political  questions,  may  be  given  from 
John  Cotton's  An  Abstract  of  the  Laws  of  New 
England  as  They  are  Now  Established  (London, 
1641).  In  dealing  with  the  election  of  magis- 
trates, he  gives  biblical  references  for  each  of 
his  rules.     "All  magistrates  are  to  be  chosen   ( i ) 

*  Second  Kings  11,  17. 

275 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

by  the  free  Burgesses — Deut.  i,  13;  (2)  out  of 
the  free  Burgesses — Deut.  17,  15;  (3)  out  of 
the  ablest  men  and  most  approved  amongst  them 
— Ex.  18,  21;  (4)  out  of  the  rank  of  Noble- 
men or  Gentlemen  amongst  them — Eccles.  10,  17, 
Jer.  30,  21";  and  so  throughout.^  But  it  is  un- 
necessary to  press  this  point,  which  is  universally 
known,  and  besides  has  only  indirect  bearing  upon 
the  influence  of  Jews  themselves,  apart  from  their 
Scriptures. 

One  of  the  effects  of  the  Reformation  was  to 
intensify  the  belief  in  witchcraft  and  generally 
in  thaumaturgic  practices,  on  which  the  prac- 
tical Kabbalah  of  the  Jews  may  possibly  have 
had  some  influence;  Reuchlin  certainly  appears 
to  have  had  some  belief  in  Jewish  magic.  If  so, 
the  Jews  were  severely  punished,  for  it  helped 
to  intensify  the  popular  belief  that  there  was 
something  uncanny  about  them,  and  led  to  those 
"vulgar  errors"  of  the  Fator  Judaicus  and  about 
Jews  wearing  tails,  of  which  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
speaks,  and  the  latter  of  which  has  lingered  on 
to  the  present  day.' 

'  See  Dobschiitz,  The  Influence  of  the  Bible  on  Civilization, 
New  York,  1914,  p.  159. 

"  Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  instance  of  this  attitude  was 
shown  in  the  burning  of  Jean  Allard  at  Paris,  in  1620,  for  hav- 

276 


THE     BREAK-DOWN    OF    THE    CHURCH-EMPIRE 

The  Protestant  theory  of  persecution,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  based  upon  the  conception  of 
the  theocratic  state  cierived  from  Old  Testament 
models.  The  extermination  of  the  Canaanites, 
the  executions  of  Agag  and  Haman,  the  exter- 
mination of  the  prophets  of  Baal,  were  quoted 
as  precedents  of  similar  severities  tov/ard  the 
rebels  against  God's  truth.  But,  in  reality.  It 
was  the  Hellenistic  insistence  upon  the  all-im- 
portance of  doctrine  and  faith  which  lay  at  the 
root  of  the  theory.  The  old  Hebrews,  so  far 
as  they  had  any  principle  at  the  root  of  their 
persecuting  zeal,  based  it  upon  the  anti-social 
practices,  to  which  the  v/orship  of  Baal,  of 
Moloch,  or  of  Asherah  led.  Both  Catholics  and 
Protestants  deliberately  waged  war  against  doc- 
trine or  opinion,  though,  of  course,  in  the  last 
resort  they  would  have  contended  that  this  had 
a  deleterious  effect  upon  national  character  and 
had  to  be  guarded  against  as  insidious  moral 
contagion.  There  was  further  a  survival  of 
the  Greco-Roman  conception  of  the  collective 
liability  of  the  citizens  to  the  gods  of  the  state, 

ing  cohabited  with  a  Jewess,  which  was  thus  regarded  as  an 
unnatural  offence.  Evans,  Criminal  Prosecution  of  Animals, 
p.  165. 

277 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

which  would  cause  the  transgression  of  one  citi- 
zen against  the  gods  to  bring  down  their  wrath 
against  the  whole  state. ^  Divergent  opinion  in 
theological  matters  was  thus  regarded  as  a  sort 
of  moral  smallpox,  which  the  state  was  justified 
in  exterminating  by  any  means,  however  severe. 
Both  sides  in  the  Protestant-Catholic  controversy 
were  therefore  eager  to  display  their  zeal  for  the 
faith,  as  was  shown  in  the  legal  murder  of 
Servetus  by  Calvin. 

Yet  the  mere  existence  of  dissidents  from  the 
state  belief,  both  in  Protestant  and  in  Catholic 
countries,  brought  about  a  state  of  affairs  which 
led  ultimately  to  the  toleration  of  different  be- 
liefs within  the  state,  from  which  Jews  finally 
benefited.  The  stages  are  fairly  clear,  and  in 
each  of  them  Jews  had  directly,  or  indirectly, 
considerable  influence." 

*  There  is,  of  course,  a  trace  of  this  conception  in  the  Hebraic 
theocracy,  as  shown  in  the  leading  case  of  Achan,  but  the  strong 
individualism  of  the  prophets  reduced  its  significance. 

^I  follow,  for  the  general  outlines,  E.  S.  P.  Haynes,  Religious 
Persecution;  a  Study  of  Political  Psychology,  London,  1904. 
Bishop  Creighton's  Hulsean  lectures.  Persecution  and  Tolerance, 
London,  1895,  are  scarcely  an  adequate  treatment  of  the  subject, 
and  do  not  do  justice  to  his  powers.  Sir  Frederick  Pollock's 
essay  on  "The  Theory  of  Persecution,"  in  his  Essays  in  Juris- 
prudence, 1882,  pp.  144-75,  is  still  slighter. 

278 


THE    BREAK-DOWN    OF    THE    CHURCH-EMPIRE 

After  the  first  Hning-up  of  the  two  forces  in 
Germany  had  shown  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  carry  out  the  mediaeval  practice  of  exterminat- 
ing heresy  by  burning  up  the  heretics,  a  compro- 
mise was  reached  at  the  Peace  of  Augsburg, 
^SSS->  hy  which  the  religion  of  each  separate 
state  was  to  be  determined  by  that  of  its  ruler. 
'  This  principle,  enshrined  in  the  phrase  "Cujus 
regio,  ejus  religio,"  did  not  imply  any  tolera- 
tion within  the  state  of  divergent  religious 
opinion  from  the  state  church,  but  allowed,  or 
compelled,  the  holders  of  such  opinions  to  trans- 
fer their  allegiance  elsewhere.  In  other,  words, 
banishment  was  substituted  for  incineration  as 
a  punishment  for  heresy.  Within  the  state  the 
legislation  "De  Heretico  Comburendo"  was  still 
operative,  as  was  seen,  on  a  large  scale,  in  the 
England  of  Bloody  Queen  Mary;  but  it  was  ap- 
plied to  Protestants  in  Catholic  lands  and  to 
Catholics  in  Protestant  countries.  But  here  was 
international  toleration  and  recognition  of  alien 
faiths  between  states,  though  there  was,  as  yet, 
no  intra-national  tolerance. 

Now  it  is  scarcely  possible  that,  in  thus  sub- 
stituting banishment  for  burning,  the  rulers  of 
the  different  states  had  not  in  mind  a  consistent 

279 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

application  of  this  principle  to  Jews  throughout 
the  Middle  Ages.  Whenever  a  city  or  a  state 
had  had  enough  of  its  Jews,  it  banished  them; 
the  motives  may  have  been  mainly  economic,  but 
the  ground  for  such  action  was  the  divergence 
of  creed.  Certainly  decrees  of  banishment  were 
applied  more  frequently  to  Jews  in  this  period 
than  to  dissenters  from  the  Church-States.  Dur- 
ing the  fifteen  years  preceding  the  Peace  of 
Augsburg,  in  1555,  Jews  were  refused  entrance 
to  the  Rhenish  Palatinate  in  1540,  expelled  from 
Naples  and  Meissen  in  1541,  from  Bohemia  in 
1542,  from  Basel,  Zwickau,  Plaun,  and  Leob- 
schuetz  in  1543,  from  Austria  in  1544,  from 
Landau  and  Asslingen  in  1545,  from  Colmar 
in  1549,  from  Genoa  in  1550,  from  Bavaria 
and  Wiirtemberg  in  155 1,  from  Brunswick  in 
1553,  and  from  the  Palatinate  in  1555.  With 
these  examples  before  them,  it  would  not  be  diffi- 
cult for  the  Diet  of  Augsburg  to  determine  upon 
banishment  as  an  alternative  to  conversion  for 
dissenters  from  the  state  church. 

Similarly  in  the  next  stage  of  toleration,  rep- 
resented by  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  1598,  both 
Jewish  example  and  indirect  influence  are  dis- 
cernible.    It  cannot  be  by  chance  that  the  three 

280 


THE    BREAK-DOWN    OF    THE    CHURCH-EMPIRE 

most  prominent  voices  among  the  Politiques,  who 
laid  down  the  principles  which  were  to  result  in 
the  Edict — Michel  de  I'Hopital,  Jean  Bodin, 
and  Michel  de  Montaigne — were  all  partly  of 
Jewish  race.  Montaigne,  for  example,  had  a 
Jewish  mother,  a  Protestant  brother,  while  him- 
self a  strict  professing  Catholic.  The  existence 
of  these  divergent  creeds  within  their  own  families 
cannot  have  failed  to  influence  the  Politiques  to 
work  out  a  practical  plan  for  securing  intra- 
national toleration.^  All  of  them  recognized  the 
desirability  of  one  creed  for  the  state,  if  it  could 
be  made  effectual,  and  therefore  allowed  the 
theoretical  right  to  persecution.  They  only 
adopted  toleration  as  a  practical  pis  aller;  once 
it  had  been  shown  that  persecution  had  failed, 
they  contended  that  toleration  of  a  second 
creed  (not  necessarily  of  more)  was  the  only 
practical  means  of  securing  the  state  against 
anarchy. 

It  is  probable,  however,  that  the  example  of 
Poland  had  also  some  bearing  upon  the  views 
of  the   Politiques   and   their   illustrious   follower, 

*  On  their  views  see  the  chapter  of  J.  N.  Figgis  on  "The 
Politiques  and  Religious  Toleration,"  in  his  excellent  book, 
From  Gerson  to  Grotius,  Cambridge,  1907. 

281 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS   TO    CIVILIZATION 

Henry  IV.  Poland  was  the  one  state  in  me- 
diaeval Europe  in  which  creed  and  citizenship 
did  not,  indeed  could  not,  go  together.  From 
the  year  1386  the  Catholic  kingdom  of  Poland 
and  the  Orthodox  duchy  of  Lithuania  had  been 
united  under  the  same  Jagellon  dynasty;  and  the 
Catholic  Church  in  Poland  dared  not  persecute 
Lithuanian  subjects  of  the  same  king  because 
they  were  of  the  Greek  Church,  nor  deny  their 
"Polish"  citizenship,  and  similarly  in  Lithuania 
the  co-existence  of  different  creeds,  in  the  same 
state  system,  had  to  be  permitted.  As  a  con- 
sequence, it  was  easy  for  the  Polish-Lithuanian 
kingdom  to  admit  the  existence  of  a  third  creed; 
and  we  accordingly  find  that  Poland  formed  the 
asylum  for  the  dispossessed  Jews  of  Germany 
throughout  the  fifteenth  century.  This  indeed 
accounts  for  the  fact  that,  even  to  the  present 
day,  more  than  half  the  Jews  of  the  world  are 
still  to  be  found  within  the  confines  of  Old 
Poland,  where  they  speak  the  archaic  German 
known  as  Yiddish,  which  they  brought  with 
them  thither  in  the  fifteenth  century.  This  tol- 
erated existence  of  so  large  a  number  of  persons, 
notoriously  holding  anti-Trinitarian  views,  must 
have  helped  in  the  spread  in  Poland  of  the  doc- 

282 


THE    BREAK-DOWN    OF    THE    CHURCH-EMPIRE 

trines  of  Lelio  Sozzini  and  his  nephew,  Fausto 
Sozzini,  after  whom  anti-Trinitarianism  was 
called  Socinianism.  Protestantism,  in  all  its 
forms,  had  also  spread  widely  in  Poland,  and 
the  variegated  religious  aspect  of  the  country  be- 
came familiar  to  the  Politiques  during  the  two 
years  1573-4,  in  which  Henry,  duke  of  Anjou, 
was  king  of  Poland. 

Unfortunately  the  influence  of  the  Politiques 
applied  only  to  France,  where  the  only  Jews 
were  new  Christians  of  Bordeaux  and  Marseilles, 
though  Henry  IV  entered  into  negotiations  with 
the  secret  Jews  of  Spain  in  1595,  and  granted 
privileges  to  the  few  Jews  of  Metz  under  his 
jurisdiction  in  1602.  Meanwhile,  however,  there 
had  arisen  in  Europe  a  state  which,  from  the 
very  first,  was  committed  to  practical  toleration. 
The  United  States  of  the  Netherlands  were  a 
republic,  and  therefore  had  no  dynastic  connec- 
tion with  any  of  the  ruling  creeds,  and  at  the 
same  time  their  first  stadtholder  was,  by  con- 
viction and  experience,  the  first  princely  advo- 
cate of  genuine  toleration.  But,  besides  this,  the 
whole  basis  of  the  Dutch  Commonwealth  was 
economic;  their  strength  consisted  in  their  com- 
mand  of   the   North    Sea    fisheries.      Now   com- 

283 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

merce,  like  war,  regards  efficiency,  apart  from 
birth  or  creed,  as  the  sole  test  of  service.  Hol- 
land was  thus  the  first  type  of  the  Welfare  State, 
which  regarded  the  material  welfare  of  its  citi- 
zens as  its  chief  aim,  and  its  phenomenal  suc- 
cess made  it  a  rival  to  the  Church-State,  which 
had  hitherto  formed  the  only  type  of  the 
European  State  system.  It  was  not,  therefore, 
surprising  that,  as  soon  as  the  Batavian  re- 
public was  firmly  established,  a  colony  of  Spanish 
Jews  settled  at  Amsterdam  in  1593,  and  soon 
proved  their  value  as  citizens  by  their  participa- 
tion in  the  higher  fmance  of  the  republic,  owing 
to  their  family  relations  with  the  Marranos 
spread  throughout  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese 
dominions.  England  soon  followed  the  example 
of  Holland  by  the  re-admission  of  Jews  under 
Cromwell,  and  there  were  the  beginnings  of  the 
same  policy  by  Colbert,  at  least  as  regards  the 
French  colonial  empire,  in  his  rescript  of  May 
23,    1671.' 

Meanwhile  there  came  forth  from  Holland 
the  first  plea  for  absolute  toleration,  and,  charac- 
teristically enough,  it  emanated  from  a  Dutch 
Jew.       Spinoza's    Tractatus    TheologicQ-Politicus 

^  Revue  des  Etudes  Juive,  ii,  99. 
284 


THE    BREAK-DOWN    OF    THE    CHURCH-EMPIRE 

contained  the  first  contention  that  the  state,  as 
such,  had  no  concern  with  the  private  opinions 
on  religion  or  other  subjects  of  its  citizens.^  The 
book  aroused  much  scandal  owing  to  its  free 
thought  on  theological  topics,  and  thereby  at- 
tracted the  more  attention  to  its  plea  for  tolera- 
lon. 

Spinoza's  view  of  the  functions  of  the  state 
were  derived  (possibly  through  Hobbes)  from 
Jean  Bodin,  the  chief  theorist  of  the  Politiques. 
This  regarded  the  state  as  the  source  of  all 
law,  and  gave  currency  to  the  notion  of  a  "Com- 
pact Omnicompetent  Sovereign,"  from  whose  dic- 
tates there  was  no  appeal.  Under  Locke  and 
Austin  this  was  destined  to  become  the  founda- 
tion of  Anglo-Saxon  law;  in  itself  it  could  be 
used  to  buttress  the  most  complete  absolutism, 
as  by  Hobbes  and  the  French  jurists;  but  by  con- 
fining the  commands  of  the  sovereign  to  secular 
affairs,  as  advocated  by  Spinoza,  it  could  leave 
an  opening  for  complete  toleration,  as  was  shown 
in   the   English   Toleration   Act   of    1689,    which 

^  Sir  Thomas  More,  in  his  Utopia,  had  indeed  advocated  gen- 
eral toleration,  but  only  as  a  far-distant  ideal,  and  he  himself 
proved  to  be  a  consistent  persecutor  when  Lord  Chancellor  and 
keeper  of  Henry  VHI's  conscience.  Seebohm,  The  Oxford  Re- 
formers. 

285 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

marks  the  third  stage  in  the  progress  of  European 
toleration. 

This  act  was  one  of  real  toleration,  that  is, 
while  recognizing  a  dominant  religion  (the  Es- 
tablished Church,  or  rather  two  Established 
Churches,  Anglicanism  in  England,  Presby- 
terianlsm  in  Scotland),  it  regards  dissent  as 
not,  of  itself,  an  offence  against  law.  This  is 
far  indeed  from  true  religious  liberty  or  equality, 
since  it  does  not  give  dissenters  equal  political 
rights,  though  it  grants  them,  so  far  as  possible, 
full  civic  rights  and  protects  all  peaceable  and 
decent  worship.  As  Tom  Paine  remarks  some- 
where, toleration  once  regarded  as  a  favor  would 
nowadays  be  considered  an  insult.  But  it  was 
a  great  advance  on  intolerance  and  persecution, 
which  did  not  allow  even  civil  liberty  to  dis- 
senters from  the  state  Church.  The  fact  that 
it  was  granted  in  England  by  a  Dutch  prince, 
William  III,  is  significant.  Its  chief  literary 
defender,  John  Locke,  had  passed  some  time  In 
Holland,  and  there,  doubtless,  learnt  the  prin- 
ciples which  he  expounded  in  his  Letters  on 
Toleration. 

It  is  possible  also  that  there  was  some  reflex 
influence  of  the  growing  spirit  of  toleration  and 

286 


THE    BREAK-DOWN    OF    THE    CHURCH-EMPIRE 

even  of  equality  in  the  American  colonies  of 
England.  The  Lords  Baltimore  in  Maryland, 
Roger  Williams  in  Connecticut,  William  Penn 
in  Pennsylvania  and  in  New  Jersey,  had  prac- 
tically established  religious  toleration  in  those 
states,  while  New  York,  under  its  Dutch  gov- 
ernors, had,  for  the  most  part,  adopted  the 
toleration  of  the  home  country.  These  states 
gave  henceforth  a  bright  example  of  a  possi- 
bility of  citizens  working  for  the  common  good 
of  the  state,  while  each  worshipping  God  in  his 
own  way.^  These  were  followed  early  in  the 
next  century  by  the  constitution  of  Georgia,  laid 
down  by  the  author  of  the  Letters  on  Tolera- 
tion. As  a  test  case,  mention  may  be  made  of 
the  reception  of  a  certain  number  of  Jews  in  New 
York  in  1654,  after  their  being  expelled  from 
Brazil,  when  recaptured  by  the  Portuguese  from 
the  Dutch.  Old  Peter  Stuyvesant,  the  governor, 
was  in  some  doubt,  but,  on  referring  the  matter 
to  Amsterdam,  was  ordered  to  carry  out  the 
general  Dutch  policy  of  toleration. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  Jews  had  much  direct 

^See  S.  H.  Cobb,  The  Rise  of  Religious  Liberty  in  America, 
1902,  which  can  be  supplemented  by  O.  S.  Straus'  Roger  IVil- 
liams,  and  Origin  of  Religious  Liberty. 

287 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Influence  on  this  third  stage  of  toleration,  though, 
as  we  have  seen,  it  was  dominated  by  Holland, 
where  Jewish  influence  was  shown  by  the  respect 
paid  to  Manasseh  ben  Israel  and  the  interest 
aroused  by  Spinoza.  But  the  advantages  gained 
through  the  toleration  of  Jews  by  Holland  certainly 
affected  the  progress  of  the  principle  of  toleration 
as  applied  to  them,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  ex- 
amples of  Cromwell  and  Colbert,  and  even  in 
Germany  there  grew  up  a  class  of  tolerated  Jews 
("Tolerierte  Juden,"  "Schutz-Juden") ,  and  the 
Great  Elector  not  alone  received  Huguenots  after 
the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  1685,  but 
had  previously  invited  to  Berlin  the  Jews  ex- 
pelled from  Vienna  in  1670.  Yet,  though  toler- 
ated, they  were  burdened  with  a  number  of  de- 
grading disabilities;  the  numbers  were  limited, 
both  directly  and  also  by  restricting  the  annual 
number  of  marriages  among  them;  they  still  had 
to  bear  the  badge  or  other  distinctive  marks,  were 
mostly  confined  to  ghetti,  and  were  not  allowed 
access  to  the  oligarchic  guilds  that  ruled  all  trade, 
and,  above  all,  were  laden  with  innumerable  taxes, 
which  made  the  rulers  as  much  sharers  in  their 
usury  as  the  mediaeval  kings/ 

^A.  Dietz,  in  his  Stammbuch  der  Frankfurter  Juden,  1907,  pp. 
288 


THE    BREAK-DOWN    OF    THE    CHURCH-EMPIRE 

The  fourth  stage  In  the  history  of  religious 
liberty,  as  applied  to  Jews  and  others,  began 
with  the  French  Revolution,  and  will  be  con- 
sidered In  the  next  chapter,  in  dealing  with  the 
general  relations  of  Jews  and  Liberalism.  But 
it  remains  to  consider  how  far  they  were  con- 
nected with  what  Lecky,  Leslie  Stephen,  Mr. 
Baynes,  and  others  consider  to  be  the  underlying 
cause  of  increasing  toleration  culminating  in  re- 
ligious equality.  All  these  investigators  con- 
sider that  the  real  underlying  cause  of  increas- 
ing laxity  toward  heresy  and  dissent  was  the 
growth  of  scepticism  about  dogmatic  religion 
caused  by  the  Renaissance  and  the  growth  of 
scientific  inquiry.  At  the  very  beginning  of  the 
movement,  Pomponazzi,  the  typical  sceptic  of  the 
Renaissance,  had  put  the  difficulty,  raised  by 
the  co-existence  of  the  three  religions,  Judaism, 
Christianity,  and  Islam:  "If  the  three  religions 
are  false,  all  men  are  deceived;  if  only  one  is 
true,  the  majority  are  deceived."  And  Mon- 
taigne had  put  the  practical  difficulty  clearly 
when    he   declared   that   men   ought   to   be   very 

400-7,  gives  a  list  of  not  less  than  thirty-four  different  kinds  of 
taxes  and  impositions  to  which  the  Jews  of  Frankfort  were  sub- 
jected. 

289 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

sure  of  their  own  faith  before  burning  other  men 
for  disbelieving  it.  When  these  other  men  were 
often  relatives,  friends,  and  neighbors,  practical 
men  felt  increasingly  the  difficulty  of  carrying 
out  the  stern  logic  of  the  Churches ;  the  diver- 
gence of  faith  was  an  infectious  moral  disease 
that  had  to  be  stamped  out  at  all  costs.  Soon 
sarcasm  was  to  add  its  undermining  influence  to 
the  direct  assaults  of  rationalism;  Bayle,  Swift, 
Voltaire,  and  Diderot  were  to  complete  the  work 
of  the  Politiques  and  the  Dutch.  It  thus  came 
about  that,  while  at  the  beginning  of  the  period 
we  are  now  considering  it  would  have  seemed 
absurd  for  a  Catholic  or  a  Calvinist  not  to  save 
the  soul  of  his  heretical  neighbor  by  burning  his 
body,  the  same  conduct  would  seem  monstrous 
to  men  w^ho  were  looking  forward  to  strangling 
the  last  of  the  kings  with  the  entrails  of  the 
last  of  the  priests.  Persecution  that  seemed 
inevitable  and  logical  in  the  sixteenth  century 
had  grown  to  be  detestable  by  the  lapse  of  two 
centuries. 

It  Is  difficult  to  say  whether  Jews  had  much 
direct  influence  on  this  more  subtle  cause  of 
toleration.  The  general  influence  of  the  demi- 
Jew    Montaigne,    in    making    scepticism    the    re- 

290 


THE    BREAK-DOWN    OF    THE    CHURCH-EMPIRE 

ligion  of  all  men  of  the  world  throughout  West- 
ern Europe,  can  scarcely  be  exaggerated,  and 
Emerson  rightly  takes  him  as  the  type  of  the 
sceptic.  But  while  the  existence  of  a  Jewish 
mother  and  a  Protestant  brother  may  account 
for  Montaigne's  toleration,  his  scepticism  was 
individual,  as  is  shown  by  the  contrasting  case 
of  the  demi-Jew  Bodin,  who,  while  equally  tol- 
erant, was  a  consistent  and  rigorous  believer  in 
witchcraft.  The  existence  of  so  large  a  number 
of  Marranos,  professing  one  creed  and  secretly 
believing  and  observing  another,  resulted,  oc- 
casionally, in  the  appearance  of  a  Jewish  sceptic 
like  Uriel  Acosta  or  Orobio  de  Castro;  but 
there  is  absolutely  no  evidence  of  any  wide- 
spread scepticism  about  their  own  faith,  or  about 
religion  in  general,  among  the  Jews  of  this 
period,  which  is  characterized,  indeed,  more  by 
the  growth  of  superstition  among  them.  The 
great  controversy  of  the  age  was  that  between 
Jacob  Emden  and  Jonathan  Eybeschuetz  about 
the  efficacy  of  amulets. 

Just  on  the  eve  of  the  Revolution  the  ration- 
alism of  the  age  made  its  appearance  in  Judaism 
with  the  remarkable  personality  of  Moses  Men- 
delssohn.     By    showing    himself    the    intellectual 

291 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

equal  of  the  highest  German  minds  of  his  time, 
he  prepared  the  way  for  his  fellow-Jews  to  acquire 
the  open  career;  and  by  breaking  down  thear 
prejudices  against  adopting  European  culture  with 
which,  during  the  preceding  two  centuries,  Jews 
had  failed  to  keep  up,  owing  to  their  forced  migra- 
tions, increased  persecution,  and  social  isolation, 
he  enabled  them  to  take  advantage  of  the  oppor- 
tunities which  were  about  to  be  offered  to  them. 


292 


CHAPTER    IX 

Jews  and  Liberalism 

The  eighteenth  century  was  the  era  of  the  "be- 
nevolent despots"  like  Frederick  II,  Joseph  11, 
Catherine  II,  who  adopted  the  ruling  principle  of 
the  Welfare  State  that  the  object  of  government 
should  be  the  good  of  the  people,  but  considered 
that  it  could  only  be  carried  out  for  the  people 
but  not  by  them.  The  weakness  of  the  prin- 
ciple consisted  in  the  difficulty  of  securing  a  herit- 
able succession  of  capable  benevolence,  and  the 
collapse  of  Prussia  at  Jena  and  of  Joseph  IPs 
well-meant  but  unreflective  reforms  led,  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  to  the  triumph  of  the  prin- 
ciple, first  enunciated  in  America  and  carried  out 
in  France,  of  government  for  the  people  by  the 
people.  The  transition  to  the  next  stage,  from 
religious  toleration  to  religious  liberty,  is  marked, 
as  regards  the  Jews,  by  the  tolerance  edict  of 
Joseph  II  in  178 1,  which,  for  the  first  time, 
threw  open  service  in  the  army  to  the  Jews,  and 
placed  them,  to  some  extent,  on  the  same  level 
with   other   dissenters   from  the   state   Church  of 

Austria. 

293 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

But  this  was  still  toleration  and  not  liberty,  and 
was  soon  cast  into  the  background  by  the  full  re- 
ligious liberty  granted  by  the  French  Revolution 
in  1 79 1  in  imitation  of  the  clause  in  the  Ameri- 
can Constitution  of  1787,  which  entirely  separated 
State  and  Church.  The  granting  of  full  re- 
ligious liberty  to  Jews  had  previously  been  ad- 
vocated by  Mirabeau,  and,  though  Rousseau's 
influence,  which  was  all-important  in  the  Revo- 
lution, still  retained  a  touch  of  Genevan  intoler- 
ance, Jews  came  within  his  religious  requirements 
for  citizenship  by  their  belief  in  Providence  and 
in  future  reward  and  punishment.  It  has  to  be 
remembered  that  in  spirit.  If  not  in  will-power 
or  influence,  Louis  XVI  was  of  the  school  of  the 
benevolent  despots,  and  it  was  he  who  signed  the 
edict  of  November  13,  1791,  which  placed,  for 
the  first  time  in  European  history,  Jews  on  the 
same  level  as  the  adherents  of  all  other  creeds  as 
regards  civil  and  political  qualifications.  Holland 
was  appropriately  the  first  country  to  grant  the 
same  religious  equality  to  its  Jews.^ 

^It  is  perhaps  worth  while  remarking  that  one  of  the  most 
prominent  leaders  on  the  Jewish  side  in  Holland,  Herz  Bromet, 
had  lived  as  a  free  Burgher  in  Surinam  for  a  long  time,  and 
that  the  example  of  America,  especially  New  York  State,  was 
adduced  in  favor  of  the  movement.     (Graetz,  xi,  230-1.) 

294 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

The  French  Revolution,  from  our  present 
standpoint,  is  the  more  remarkable  inasmuch  as 
it  is  the  only  great  European  movement  on  which 
Jews  had  absolutely  no  influence,  direct  or  indi- 
rect, owing  to  their  inappreciable  numbers  and 
insecure  position  in  the  chief  centers,  Paris,  Lyons, 
and  Marseilles;  they  were  influenced  by  it,  not  it 
by  them.  As  the  Revolution  principles  spread 
into  the  neighboring  countries  with  the  French 
arms,  in  Venice  the  walls  of  the  original  ghetto, 
from  which  all  the  rest  received  their  names,  fell 
at  once  on  the  entry  of  Napoleon's  troops.  No 
wonder  they  welcomed  with  fervor  the  victories 
of  the  French  troops;  and  we  can  catch  in  Heine 
echoes  of  the  enthusiasm  with  which  Napoleon 
was  acclaimed  as  the  Liberator. 

Napoleon's  own  attitude  was  not  so  uniformly 
friendly  to  Jews.  On  his  way  back  from  Auster- 
litz,  in  1805,  he  learnt,  at  Strassburg,  of  the  wide 
distress  caused  in  Alsace  by  the  exactions  of  cer- 
tain Jewish  usurers  in  that  province,  and  on  his 
return  to  Paris  issued  edicts  directed  against  the 
Alsatian  Jews,  restricting  their  usurious  activity. 
It  is  fair  to  add  that  these  enactments  were  ob- 
viously directed  against  the  usury  of  these  Al- 
satian Jews,  and  not  against  Jews  in  general,  since 

295 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

they  were  specifically  declared  not  to  apply  to  the 
Jews  of  Bordeaux  in  the  South  or  Northern  Italy 
then  under  Napoleon's  control.  It  would  indeed 
have  been  against  the  whole  tendency  of  his  ca- 
reer to  have  made  the  Jews  an  exception  to  that 
principle  of  the  carriere  otiverte  mix  talents, 
which  was  the  keynote  to  his  whole  policy,  as  it 
is  logically  to  all  war-lords.  It  was  by  no  acci- 
dent that  similar  indifference  towards  the  creed 
of  their  soldiers,  or  civil  servants,  was  shown  by 
William  the  Silent,  Wallenstein,  Cromwell,  Wil- 
liam III,  and  Frederick  the  Great. 

Napoleon's  attention  having  thus  been  drawn 
to  the  Jewish  question,  he  proceeded,  with  char- 
acteristic energy,  to  solve  it  by  summoning  to 
Paris  a  representative  assembly  of  the  Jews  of 
France,  Germany,  and  Italy,  who  should  deter- 
mine on  what  terms  Jews  could  be  admitted  into 
a  modern  Country-State,  which  had  been  freed 
from  the  shackles  of  the  mediaeval  Church-State, 
and  only  recognized  a  certain  prerogative  in  the 
Church  to  which  the  majority  of  Frenchmen  be- 
longed (the  Concordat  of  1802).  After  sum- 
moning an  assembly  of  Jewish  notables  for  a  pre- 
liminary inquiry,  in  1806,  a  more  formal  San- 
hedrin  was  summoned  in  the  following  year,  to 

296 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

which  twelve  test  questions  were  submitted,  among 
them,  whether  the  French  Jews  could  regard 
France  as  their  fatherland  and  Frenchmen  as 
their  brothers,  and  the  laws  of  the  state  as  bind- 
ing upon  them.  Further  points  were  raised  as  to 
polygamy,  divorce,  and  mixed  marriages;  remain- 
ing questions  related  to  the  position  of  rabbis  and 
the  Jewish  laws  about  usury.  All  these  problems 
were  decided  to  the  satisfaction  of  Napoleon, 
though  some  of  them  aroused  much  searching  of 
heart  among  the  more  strictly  orthodox.  The  out- 
come legally  recognized  that  there  was  nothing  in 
Jewish  law  or  faith  which  prevented  its  adherents 
from  being  legitimate  and  full  members  of  a  mod- 
ern state  which,  at  that  time,  practically  recog- 
nized Catholicism  as  the  state  Church.  The  sig- 
nificance of  the  decision  was  far-reaching  not 
alone  for  the  Jews  but  for  the  whole  European 
State  system ;  it  was  a  practical  recognition  tha.t 
the  country,  not  the  faith,  was  the  foundation  of 
a  nation,  and  thus  gave  the  final  blow  to  the  con- 
ception of  a  Church-Empire,  which  had  upheld 
the  contrary  principle.  It  was  not  without  sig- 
nificance that  simultaneously  the  emperor  of 
Austria  agreed  to  the  dissolution  of  the  Holy 
Roman  empire. 

297 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

But  though  the  Jews  had  had  no  influence  on 
the  French  Revolution  and  no  share  in  Napo- 
leon's revolutionary  reorganization  of  West 
Europe,  next  to  the  serfs  they  reaped  the  most 
benefit  from  both  movements,  because  these  were 
the  two  most  oppressed  classes  under  the  feudal 
system  still  surviving.  Accordingly,  they  im- 
bibed with  enthusiasm  the  libertarian  principles 
of  the  Revolution  and  the  "open  career"  ad- 
ministration of  Napoleon.  They  threw  off  with 
avidity  most  of  the  shackles  which  prevented  their 
joining  in  general  European  culture,  and  Jewish 
parents  of  means  immediately  began  giving  their 
sons  and,  what  is  more,  their  daughters  the 
secular  education  which  would  adapt  them  to  the 
careers  which  now  seemed  to  be  open  to  them  as 
publicists,  lawyers,  and  civil  servants.  When  the 
reaction  came,  under  the  Holy  Alliance,  with  its 
attempt  to  revive  the  Church-State  and  the  closed 
career  of  prerogative,  Jews  everywhere  in  West- 
ern Europe  joined  the  Liberal  forces,  from  whose 
triumph  alone  they  could  hope  for  a  dispersal 
of  the  clouds  which  once  more  obscured  the  sun 
of  liberty,  in  which  they  had  baslced  for  a  few 
short  years.  Jews  soon  ranked  among  the  in- 
tellectual leaders   of   continental   Liberalism,   and 

298 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

from  1815  to  1848  exercised  an  appreciable  in- 
fluence on  the  course  of  public  opinion.  In  par- 
ticular a  brilliant  band  of  Jewish  litterateurs  in 
Germany  helped  to  mediate  between  French  Liber- 
alism and  German  public  opinion,  and  practically 
led  the  movement  known  as  Young  Germany, 
which  opposed  the  cosmopolitan  tendencies  of  the 
eighteenth  century  to  the  narrow  nationalism  of 
the  Reaction  and  advocated  the  Revolution  prin- 
ciples of  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity,  as 
against  the  revival  of  the  claims  of  authority  and 
privilege  by  the  Holy  Alliance.  Borne  and 
Heine,  Hartmann  and  Saphir,  Jacoby  and  Karl 
Marx,  are  recognized  by  friends  and  foes  alike 
as  among  the  leading  influences  which  led  ulti- 
mately to  the  downfall  of  Metternich  and  his 
school. 

They  were  aided  in  their  Liberal  tendencies  by 
a  remarkable  group  of  emancipated  Jewesses, 
who  introduced  into  Germany  the  vogue  of  the 
political  salon  after  the  manner  of  Madame  Ro- 
land and  Madame  de  Stael.  They  were  mostly 
from  the  Berlin  circle,  which  had  arisen  around 
Moses  Mendelssohn,  and  carried  his  tendencies 
towards  rationalism  and  culture  to  extreme  limits. 
His  two  daughters,  Dorothea  and  Henriette,  and 

299 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

their  friends  Henriette  Herz  and  Rahel  Levin, 
created  salons  to  which  were  attracted  some  of 
the  more  liberal  spirits  of  the  cultured  world  of 
Berlin.  Dorothea  Mendelssohn  ultimately  mar- 
ried Friedrich  von  Schlegel,  and  became  one  of 
the  Muses  of  the  German  romantic  school.  Pub- 
licists of  distinction  like  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt 
and  Friedrich  von  Gentz  formed,  with  her  and 
others  of  her  circle,  a  "Bond  of  Virtue" 
(Tugendbund),  which,  according  to  all  appear- 
ances, was  named  on  the  principle  of  Incus  a  non 
lucetido.  Rahel,  "the  little  woman  with  a  great 
soul,"  as  Goethe  called  her,  was  even  a  more 
striking  personality.  She  numbered  among  her 
friends  men  of  such  different  types  as  Schelling 
and  Schleiermacher,  the  Prince  de  Ligne  and 
Fichte,  Schlegel  and  Gutzkow,  Prince  Louis 
Ferdinand,  Frederick  the  Great's  nephew,  and 
Fouque,  Gentz,  and  the  Humboldts,  and  she 
finally  married  Varnhagen  von  Ense.  She  was 
the  first  to  appreciate,  to  its  full  extent,  the  multi- 
form genius  of  Goethe,  and  helped  the  rise  to 
fame  of  Borne,  Heine,  and  Victor  Hugo.  She 
was  undoubtedly  the  most  striking  personality 
among  the  women  of  her  age  in  Germany,  and  is 

300 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

nowadays  regarded  as  one  of  the  chief  fore- 
runners of  the  Feminist  movement.^ 

These  salons  had  an  air  of  cultured  Bohemian- 
ism,  which  attracted  many  men  of  rank  in  Mid- 
Europe  who  were  beginning  to  be  repelled  by  the 
exactions  of  social  gatherings  in  which  all  asso- 
ciations were  determined  by  armorial  bearings. 
A  similar  salon  was  held  in  Vienna  by  Baroness 
von  Arnstein,  in  whose  mansion  all  the  diplomats 
of  the  Congress  of  Vienna  met  as  on  neutral 
ground.^  Such  gatherings,  while  helping  to  liber- 
alize good  society  in  Mid-Europe,  also  brought 
the  position  of  Jews  to  the  notice  of  the  ruling 
classes,  and,  in  many  cases,  aroused  a  determina- 
tion to  repair  their  wrongs.  You  cannot  accept 
a  man  socially  yet  refuse  him  the  most  elementary 
rights  politically. 

The  Revolution  of  1830  brought  into  Euro- 
pean prominence  the  two  most  brilliant  members 
of  Rahel's  coterie,  Ludwig  Borne  and  Heinrich 
Heine.  Both  had  made  their  mark  as  litterateurs 
in    the    preceding    decade,    but    Borne's  Letters 

*  See  Ellen  Key,  Rahel  Levin. 

"  Similar  salons  were  held  later  by  distinguished  Jewesses 
like  Countess  Waldegrave,  in  London,  and  Madame  Raffalo- 
vitch,  in  Paris;  and  the  Rothschilds  have  throughout  made  their 
houses  centers  of  the  most  cultured  influence. 

301 


JEWISH   CONTRIBUTIONS   TO    CIVILIZATION 

from  Paris  and  Heine's  French  Conditions 
(contributed  to  the  Augsburger  Zeitung)  drew 
the  attention  of  all  liberal  Germany  to  the  new 
hopes  aroused  by  the  downfall  of  the  absolutist 
monarchy  in  France.  Henceforth  they  were  the 
dominating  voices  in  arousing  among  the  Ger- 
man Liberals  the  hope  of  similar  liberty,  while  in 
France  itself  they  helped  to  bring  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  French  culture  the  deeper  currents  of 
German  thought  and  literature.  In  particular 
their  brilliant  wit  and  incisive  sarcasm  set  the  tone 
for  the  feuilleton  literature  of  all  Mid-Europe. 
By  their  very  isolation  they  were  enabled  to  re- 
gard men  and  affairs  with  a  certain  detachment, 
and  they  both  wrote  with  an  iridescent  insolence 
which  can  only  be  described  by  the  Jewish  tech- 
nical word  Hiitzpah.  Treitschke  complained  of 
their  frequent  irreverences  and  flippancies,  but  in 
both  respects  Heine,  "the  wittiest  Frenchman  since 
Voltaire,"  was  merely  following  in  the  foot- 
steps of  his  predecessor,  and  Borne,  like  Diderot, 
knew  that  the  most  effective  weapon  against  au- 
thority is  sarcasm.^ 

^  Treitschke,  in  the  Bilder  extracted  from  his  history,  does 
more  than  justice  to  the  Jewish  influence  on  German  Liberalism. 
His  anti-Semitism,  as  so  often  happens,  made  him  see  Jewish 
influence  where  it  was  not,  and  exaggerated  it  where  it  existed. 

302        • 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISiM 

Under  their  leadership  a  whole  school  of  lib- 
eral journalists  arose  in  Germany  and  Austria, 
many  of  them  Jews  like  Saphir  and  Hartmann, 
and  they  have  given  a  tone  to  Mid-European 
journalism  which  has  lasted  on  to  the  present  day. 
They  thus  helped  to  internationalize  Liberalism 
of  the  French  form,  with  its  rather  vague  and  in- 
definite strivings  after  liberty,  equality,  and  fra- 
ternity, as  contrasted  with  the  Liberalism  of  the 
English  type  which,  dominated  by  Jeremy  Ben- 
tham,  aimed  at  constitutional,  economical,  and  so- 
cial forms  of  a  definite  character.  Young  Ger- 
many, as  represented  by  Heine  and  Borne,  left 
the  latter  type  of  Liberalism  severely  alone. 

Yet,  in  the  struggle  for  constitutional  liberty, 
which  led  to  the  Revolution  of  1848,  Jews  took  a 
considerable  part  on  the  more  practical  side.  The 
agitation  in  Prussia  may  be  said  to  have  begun 
with  Dr.  Johann  Jacoby's  Four  Questions, 
which  gave  rise  to  Herwegh's  outburst  of  admira- 
tion (to  which  Mr.  Houston  Chamberlain's  at- 
tention may  justifiably  be  drawn)  : 

"Und  wieder  ob  den  Landen 
Lag  jiingst  ein  schwerer  Bann: 
Da  ist  ein  Mann  erstanden, 
Ein  ganzer,  deutscher  Mann." 

303 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

It  was  Jacoby  who  in  1848  stood  out  from  a 
deputation  to  King  Frederick  William  IV,  when 
he  refused  to  listen  to  them,  and  said:  "It  is  the 
great  misfortune  of  kings  that  they  will  not  lis- 
ten to  the  truth."  At  the  Vorparlament  at  Frank- 
fort one  of  the  most  striking  figures  was  Moritz 
Hartmann,  who,  with  Karl  Beck  and  Alfred 
Meissner,  had  constituted  the  chief  poetic  voices 
of  Austrian  Liberalism.  In  the  March  days  at 
Berlin  one  of  the  most  familiar  figures  was  Leo- 
pold Zunz,  the  founder  of  Jewish  science,  and 
known  famiharly  to  the  Berlin  populace  as  "Vater 
Zunz."  Another  Jewish  scholar,  Schiller-Szinessy, 
was  a  conspicuous  figure  in  the  Hungarian  revolt, 
and  a  brother  of  Adolph  Jellinek  lost  his  life  in 
the  struggle.  In  Paris,  Adolphe  Cremieux  was 
one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Revolutionary  party, 
and  in  Italy  the  salon  of  Signora  Nathan  (mother 
of  the  late  mayor  of  Rome,  Ernesto  Nathan) 
was  a  center  for  the  adherents  of  Mazzini. 
Everywhere  during  that  critical  year  Jews  took 
a  part,  and  often  a  leading  part,  in  the  upheaval 
against  absolutism.^ 

^  No  adequate  or  connected  account  has  yet  been  given  of  the 
part  taken  by  the  Jews  in  the  Revolution  of  1848.  Incidentally, 
a  good  deal  of  information  is  contained  in  the  last  volume  of 

304 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

Yet  Jews  were  not  altogether  unrepresented 
among  the  Conservative  forces,  counting,  indeed, 
two  of  their  chief  leaders,  F.  J.  Stahl  in  Prussia 
and  Benjamin  Disraeli  In  England.  Disraeli's  is 
the  better  known  name,  but  it  is  probable  Stahl 
was  equally  influential.^  He  Is  described  by  Sir 
A.  W.  Ward  In  the  Cambridge  Modern  History, 
xij  395>  ^s  "the  Intellectual  leader  of  the  con- 
servative aristocratic  party  and  the  most  remark- 
able brain  in  the  Upper  Chamber  ...  he  largely 
supplied  the  ruling  party  with  the  learning  and 
wealth  of  ideas  on  which  to  found  their  claims. 
Their  organ  was  the  Kreuzzeitung,  and  the  party 
was  called  by  Its  name."  Bluntschli  calls  him, 
"after  Hegel  the  most  Important  representative 
of  the  philosophical  theory  of  the  State.  He,  in 
many  ways,  advanced  political  science  by  his  dia- 
lectical and  critical  ability  in  founding  new  points 
of   view."  ^      But    Stahl's    historic    Influence    will 

G.  Brandes,  Main   Currents  in  Nineteenth   Century  Literature, 
vi,  "Young  Germany." 

*  Lord  Acton,  in  his  Letters  to  Mary  Gladstone,  p.  200,  de- 
clares that  Stahl  was  the  greater  man;  but  Acton,  from  his  close 
relations  with  Gladstone,  was  a  somewhat  prejudiced  witness. 
Dollinger,  who  was  an  equally  competent  judge,  ranked  Disraeli 
higher. 

'  The  Theory  of  the  State,  p.  73. 
305 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

probably  rest  on  his  connection  with  Bismarck  at 
the  formative  period  of  his  career,  when  the 
future  chancell«^r  was  also  a  member  of  the 
Kreuzzeitiing  party. 

Disraeli's  career  and  influence  is  far  better 
known  and  need  not  be  further  adverted  to  in  this 
place.  The  fact  that  both  were  converts  has  lit- 
tle significance  from  our  present  point  of  view, 
since  many  of  the  Jewish  leaders  on  the  Liberal 
side  had  also  adopted  Christianity.  It  is  more 
pertinent  to  remark  that  one  cannot  trace  their 
conservatism  to  their  Judaism,  since  there  was 
everything  in  the  Jewish  position  of  their  time 
to  range  Jews  on  the  Liberal  side.  Stahl  and 
Disraeli  are,  therefore,  to  be  regarded  merely  as 
examples  of  Jewish  ability.  There  is  nothing  spe- 
cifically Jewish  in  their  influence,  unless  we  regard 
the  socialistic  strain  in  Disraeli's  conception  of 
"Young  England"  as  a  part  of  the  Jewish  sym- 
pathy with  the  "under-dog,"  which  can  be  at- 
tributed to  their  own  experiences  and  to  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  prophets. 

Certainly  we  find  a  strong  Jewish  participation 
throughout  the  socialistic  movement  which,  from 
its  inception  up  to  the  present  day,  has  been 
largely  dominated  by  Jewish  influence.     Modern 

306 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

socialism  can  be  traced  back  to  St.  Simon,  but  yet, 
at  the  death  of  the  master,  the  whole  movement 
would  have  collapsed  but  for  the  organizing  abil- 
ity of  Olinde  Rodrigues  and  the  religious  enthu- 
siasm of  his  brother  Eugene.  A  practical  turn 
was  also  given  by  their  cousins,  Isaac  and  Jacob 
Pereire,  who,  as  bankers,  had  thought  out  the 
best  means  of  carrying  out  the  principles  of  the 
school  in  practical  life.  An  extension  of  the  facili- 
ties for  banking  would  lower  the  rate  of  in- 
terest and  therefore  leave  more  to  be  distributed 
to  the  workers,  while  the  development  of  rail- 
ways would  reduce  the  cost  of  transportation  and 
thus  lower  the  cost  of  living  and  raise  real  wages. 
Accordingly,  the  Pereires  devoted  themselves,  with 
religious  enthusiasm,  to  creating  the  Credit  Fon- 
cier,  and  later  the  Credit  Mobilier,  and  were  the 
chief  agents  in  developing  the  railway  system  of 
Northern  France,  incidentally  making  themselves 
multi-millionaires  in  the  process,  though  they 
never  lost  their  enthusiasm  for  the  socialistic 
ideals.^ 

Most   of  these   left  the   St.    Simonian    Church 

^They  got  their  altruistic  tendencies  from  their  family  con- 
nections. Their  uncle,  Jacob  Rodrigues  Pereire  (1750-80),  was 
the  first  teacher  of  deaf-mutes. 

307 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

when  it  diverged  into  the  sexual  vagaries  of  En- 
fantin,  though  one  of  his  creeds  was:  "I  beheve 
that  God  has  raised  up  Saint  Simon  to  teach  the 
Father  (Enfantin)  through  Rodrigues."  FeHcien 
David,  the  musician,  however,  accompanied  En- 
fantin on  his  epoch-making  journey  to  Egypt,  in 
which  he  implanted  the  idea  of  the  Suez  Canal 
in  the  minds  of  Muhammed  Ali  and  Ferdinand 
de  Lesseps,  and  Gustave  d'Eichthal  devoted  his 
enthusiasm  and  energies  to  creating,  out  of  the 
ideas  of  St.  Simon  and  Enfantin,  a  new  religion 
which  should  revert  to  the  socialism  of  the 
prophets,  while  denying  or  ignoring,  like  them, 
any  other  life  than  this.  It  is  said  that  he  con- 
sulted Heine  as  to  the  best  means  of  founding 
such  a  religion.  "Get  crucified  and  rise  again  on 
the  third  day,"  was  Heine's  caustic  reply.^  En- 
fantin's  vagaries,  while  they  destroyed  any  direct 
practical  outcome  for  St.  Simonism,  drew  wide 
attention  to  its  views,  and  Jews  helped  in  their 
spread  throughout  Europe,  Moritz  Veit  per- 
forming that  function  in  Germ.any,  and  M.  Parma 

'The  socialistic  tone  of  J.  S.  Mill's  Principles  of  Political 
Economy,  which  differentiates  it  from  its  Ricardoan  pi-edeces- 
sors,  is  undoubtedly  due,  in  large  measure,  to  his  intercourse 
with  d'Eichthal.  See  their  correspondence,  and  compare  L. 
Stephen,  The  English  Utilitarians,  iii,  46. 

308 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

in  Italy/  The  cosmopolitan  position  of  Jews  is 
seen  at  its  best  in  such  propagandism,  and  it  is 
not  surprising  that  they  should  have  been  at- 
tracted by  views  the  kernel  of  which  were  to  be 
found  in  the  prophets  of  Israel,  whom  indeed 
Renan,  in  his  Histoire  d'Israel,  brilliantly  char- 
acterized as  socialistic  preachers." 

The  later  stages  of  socialism  in  Europe  were, 
as  is  well  known,  dominated  by  Karl  Marx,  who 
based  upon  Ricardo's  "iron  law"  of  wages  the 
imposing  edifice  of  Das  Kapital,  for  long  the 
gospel  of  advanced  socialism.  The  brilliant  Fer- 
dinand Lassalle  introduced  its  principles  into  Ger- 
man politics,  and  the  most  recent  stages  of  Ger- 
man socialism  have  been  controlled  by  the  oppor- 
tunism of  E.  Bernstein,  while  among  its  most 
prominent  leaders  have  been  V.  Adler  and  Paul 
Singer. 

This  participation  of  Jewish  intellect  and  sym- 
pathies with  the  Liberal  current  in  European  poli- 
tics made  Jewish  emancipation  a  part  of  the 
Liberal   creed    throughout   Europe.      Jews    were 

'A.  J.  Booth,  Saint-Simon  and  Saint-Simonism,  1871,  p.  165. 

"Georges  Weill,  the  historian  of  the  St.  Simonian  movement, 
contributed  an  interesting  essay  on  Les  Jiiifs  et  le  Saint- 
Simonisme  in  Revue  des  Etudes  Juives,  xxxi,  pp.  261-273. 

309 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

fighting  for  themselves  In  fighting  for  the  general 
liberties,  and  their  position  in  the  forefront  of 
the  struggle  was  thus  justified  by  the  representa- 
tive principle  at  the  root  of  modern  Liberalism. 
Jewish  disabilities  were  the  last  stronghold  of  the 
old  Church-State  conception,  and  the  struggle  on 
the  side  of  the  Reaction,  to  retain  this  fundamen- 
tal principle,  was  the  more  intense.  If  Jews  were 
granted  full  civil  and  political  rights.  It  could  no 
longer  be  contended  that  Christianity  was  a  fun- 
damental principle  of  the  State  (or,  as  the  Eng- 
lish obiter  dictum  put  it,  "Christianity  Is  a  parcel 
of  the  common  law").  Hence  the  extreme  vio- 
lence of  the  defence,  which  seems,  at  first  sight, 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  Interests  or  numbers 
involved.  Thus  the  struggle  was  as  embittered  in 
Switzerland  as  anywhere,  though  the  Jews  there 
only  constituted  a  handful,  and  the  traditions  of 
the  country  were  In  favor  of  toleration. 

From  this  aspect  the  fight  In  England  Is  typical. 
As  soon  as  the  Catholics  had  obtained  emancipa- 
tion In  1828  (the  Jews  had  stood  aside  In  order 
not  to  complicate  the  question),  Jewish  emanci- 
pation became  part  of  the  Liberal  creed,  and  the 
struggle  was  waged  In  parhament,   or  rather  in 

310 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

the  House  of  Lords,  for  the  ensuing  thirty  years. ^ 
England  was  the  home  of  toleration,  and  her  Tol- 
eration Act,  passed  as  early  as  1689,  formed  the 
third  stage  in  the  European  progress  toward  re- 
ligious liberty.  Yet  the  more  conservative  ele- 
ments in  English  life  fought  against  the  removal 
of  Jewish  disabilities  because  it  meant  the  visible 
proof  of  the  secularization  of  English  politics. 
It  is  perhaps  characteristic  that  the  Tory  resist- 
ance was  mainly  broken  down  by  Disraeli,  of  Jew- 
ish, and  by  Lord  George  Bentinck,  of  Dutch 
descent. 

With  Jewish  emancipation  in  England,  Liber- 
alism reached  its  acme  about  i860.  Complete 
civil  and  religious  liberty  was  gained  for  Jews 
throughout  Western  Europe  during  the  next  de- 
cade, in  the  German  confederation  and  in  Switzer- 
land, 1866,  in  Austria  and  Hungary,  1867,  and 
in  the  German  empire,  1871,  while  even  in  Spain 
the  expulsion  order  was  practically  repealed,  and 
toleration,  if  not  liberty,  was  given  to  Jews  there 


^  Jewish  emancipation  in  England  is  thus  a  striking  example 
of  Dicey's  law  that  thirty  years  generally  elapse  before  a  change 
in  public  opinion  is  reflected  in  legislation  (Laiv  and  Public 
Opinion  in  England.)  But  against  this  law  is  the  struggle  in 
Prussia,  which  lasted  for  fifty  years,  from  1816  to  1866. 

311 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

in  iSo'9.  By  that  time  Liberalism,  both  in  the 
French  sense  of  liberty  and  equality  before  the 
law  and  in  the  English  sense  of  constitutional 
government  and  free-trade,  had  gained  its  fullest 
triumph,  and  had  spent  its  force.  Its  negative 
work  had  been  most  valuable;  it  had  freed  the 
human  spirit  from  intolerable  shackles  and  thrown 
into  the  lumber-room  the  clogging  surviv^als  of 
medisev^al  Feudalism.  But  to  the  human  spirit 
thus  freed  it  had  little  instruction  to  give  of  a 
constructive  kind;  its  slogan  seemed  to  be  "Go  as 
you  please,"  or,  to  use  Its  own  formula,  laissez 
faire,  laissez  aller.  It  was  rather  superficial  in 
its  treatment  of  national  and  social  forces,  and 
made  no  appeal  to  the  more  generous  imaginative 
emotions.  It  was  inevitable  that  a  reaction  should 
set  in,  if  only  to  fill  the  void.  Nationalism  which 
had  given  vitality  to  France  under  Napoleon, 
and  in  Spain,  Russia,  and  Prussia  had  brought 
down  his  downfall,  was  opposed  to  Liberal  cos- 
mopolitanism. Protection  to  native  industry, 
which  had,  only  for  a  moment  and  in  England, 
lost  its  hold,  replaced  free-trade,  and  the  strong 
individualism  of  "Manchestertum"  was  drowned 
in  the  rising  flood  of  Collectivism,  whether  in  the 
more  formal  guise  of  socialism  or  in  the  vaguer 

312 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

tendencies  of  philanthropy.  In  none  of  these  cur- 
rents of  opinion  had  Jews  a  prominent  voice  ex- 
cept, as  we  have  seen,  in  the  latter,  though  there 
they  were  mainly  effective  In  opposition  and 
criticism. 

All  these  tendencies,  which  may  roughly  be 
summed  up  as  the  Counter-Revolution,  found  a 
home  in  victorious  Prussia  and  a  voice  in  Otto 
von  Bismarck,  its  representative  statesman.  As 
we  have  seen,  his  views  on  the  nature  of  the  State 
had  been  influenced  in  his  formative  period  by 
F.  J.  Stahl,  and  his  socialistic  sympathies  may 
possibly  have  been  aroused  by  Ferdinand  Lassalle; 
but  he  was  of  too  Independent  a  character  to  sub- 
mit much  to  external  Influences,  and  the  tendencies 
he  represented,  Jiinkertum  and  Militarism,  were 
entirely  opposed  to  Jewish  Liberalism.  For  some 
fifteen  years  he  found  it  convenient  to  work  with 
the  National  Liberal  party,  to  which  all  German 
Jews  belonged,  and  among  whose  leaders  the 
most  prominent  were  two  Jews,  Eduard  Lasker 
and  Ludwig  Bamberger.  But  in  1878  he  broke 
with  the  party,  and  let  loose  the  forces  of  "anti- 
Semitism"  as  a  means  of  discrediting  them.  The 
movement,  thus  encouraged  by  Bismarck,  soon 
spread  to  Austria  and  was  transformed  In  Russia 

313 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

into  the  Pogroms  of  1881.  In  France  the  Royal- 
ists and  Jesuits  conceived  hopes  of  reviving  the 
Church-State,  and  adopted  anti-Semitism  as  a 
means  of  discrediting  not  alone  Jews  but  also 
Protestants  and  other  opponents  of  Catholicism. 
Their  adherents,  the  French  nobility,  were  espe- 
cially embittered  against  the  Jews  by  the  bank- 
ruptcy of  the  Union  Generale,  a  banking  estab- 
lishment in  which  all  their  money  had  been  placed 
in  the  hope  of  wresting  the  control  of  French 
finance  from  the  hands  of  the  Rothschilds.  Their 
chief  hope  lay  in  getting  control  of  the  General 
Staff,  by  filling  its  posts  with  young  men  of  noble 
birth,  trained  by  Jesuits.  In  order  to  attain  this, 
they  schemed  to  remove  all  Jews  and  Protestants 
from  the  Staff,  and  thought  they  had  found  a 
rare  chance  in  their  perverse  persecution  of  Cap- 
tain Alfred  Dreyfus.  Their  scheme  recoiled  on 
their  own  heads,  and  the  final  result  of  the  Drey- 
fus affaire  was  to  break  the  alliance  of  clericalism 
and  militarism,  at  least  in  France. 

The  Dreyfuss  affaire  was  specially  significant 
as  bringing  Into  play,  at  one  time,  all  the  forces 
that  have  given  vitality  to  anti-Semitism.  The 
New  Nationalism,  based  not  on  country  but  on 
race  and  fostered  by  chauvinistic  anthropologists 

314 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

as  well  as  historians,  the  revived  Church  spirit, 
which  sees  in  the  National  Church  not  so  much 
the  guardian  of  Christian  truth  as  a  spiritual  bond 
of  national  unity,  the  New  Collectivism,  which 
sees  in  capitalism  the  chief  anti-social  force,  and 
the  revived  militarist  spirit  which  glorifies  war 
as  the  regenerator  of  the  nation — all  these  move- 
ments combine  to  regard  the  Jew,  considered  as 
alien,  infidel,  capitalist,  and  pacificist,  as  the  rep- 
resentative enemy.  All  the  reactionary  forces  re- 
gard a  revival  of  the  mediaeval  Church-State  as 
both  the  means  and  the  end  of  their  strivings,  and 
naturally  find  the  position  of  the  Jew,  both  theo- 
retically and  practically,  one  of  the  chief 
stumbling-blocks  in  their  way. 

We  have  now  traced,  through  the  Christian 
centuries,  the  State  ideal  of  Europe,  with  special 
reference  to  the  position  of  the  Jews  in  the  various 
European  countries  as  fixed  by  these  political 
ideals.  We  have  seen  the  Church-Empire,  after 
the  downfall  of  Arianism,  forcing  upon  the  Euro- 
pean states  tlie  principle  that  citizenship  should 
be  identical  with  orthodoxy.  This  prevented  the 
Jew  from  becoming  a  citizen  in  the  mediaeval 
states,   though,   owing  to   his   Roman   citizenship 

315 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

and  general  usefulness,  first  as  merchant,  then  as 
capitalist,  and  throughout  as  intermediary,  he  was 
permitted  to  hold  a  tolerated,  though  intention- 
ally degraded,  position.  He  was  retained  as  a 
Christian  evidence,  yet  at  the  same  time  as  a 
warning  of  the  results  of  rejecting  Christian 
truth.  The  experiment  of  using  the  Jew  as  an 
indirect  tax-gatherer  proved,  in  most  cases,  too 
costly,  and  resulted  ultimately  in  his  expulsion 
from  most  of  the  states  of  Western  Europe,  and 
his  concentration  in  the  Turkish  empire  or  in  the 
dual  kingdom  of  Poland-Lithuania,  which  had  to 
be  quasi-tolerant  because  its  constituent  elements 
were  of  different  sections  of  the  Christian  faith. 
When  the  Church-Empire  broke  up  into  dif- 
ferent Church-States  at  the  time  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, the  condition  of  the  Jews  became  worsened 
in  the  national  papacies  thus  formed,  owing  to  the 
religious  animosities  aroused  by  the  reforming 
spirit.  Protestants  felt  bound  to  show  that  they 
were  equally  eager  for  the  faith  and  opposed  to 
the  enemies  of  Christ  as  their  Catholic  opponents. 
Yet  the  actual  existence  of  dissenting  parties 
within  Christianity  led  by  degrees  to  increasing 
internal  toleration,  first  by  allowing  a  certain  lib- 
erty of  choice  in  the  creed  of  the  Church-State 

316 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

(Peace  of  Augsburg,  1555),  then  by  allowing  a 
certain  autonomy  to  a  single  dissenting  creed 
(Edict  of  Nantes,  1598),  and  finally  by  permit- 
ting civil,  though  not  political,  equality  to  all 
Christian  dissenters  from  the  established  Church 
(Act  of  Toleration,  1689).  Yet  Jews  gained  lit- 
tle by  this  advance  in  toleration,  since  the  prin- 
ciple that  Christianity  was  part  of  the  state  law 
was  still  rigorously  upheld. 

Meanwhile  there  was  rising,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  New  World,  a  conception  of  the 
state  ideal,  which  regarded  the  welfare  of  the 
whole  people  as  the  true  aim  of  social  organiza- 
tion, and  welcomed  the  co-operation  of  all  citi- 
zens, without  distinction  of  creed,  toward  that 
end.  This  phase  is  represented  by  the  rise  of 
the  Netherlands.  This  commercial  form  of  re- 
ligious toleration  (not  religious  liberty)  is  found 
wherever  Dutch  influence  extends,  in  New  Am- 
sterdam, in  the  England  of  Cromwell  and  Wil- 
liam III,  and  even  in  the  Prussia  dynastically 
connected  with  Holland.  At  the  same  time  the 
same  principle  was  naturally  applied  in  the  pro- 
fessional armies  which  grew  up  during  the  Wars 
of  Religion,  and,  in  increasing  measure,  the  sol- 
diers of  William  the  Silent,  of  Cromwell,  of  Wil- 

317 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

Ham  III,  of  Frederick  the  Great,  and  of  Carnot 
and  Napoleon  were  welcomed  without  distinction 
of  creed  or  race,  provided  they  were  efficient. 
Thus  both  commerce  and  war  tended  to  break 
down  the  associations  of  citizenship  and  creed 
within  the  Church-States,  and  the  general  trend 
of  the  American  and  French  Revolutions  laid 
down  the  principle  of  full  religious  liberty  by 
which  Jews  were  ultimately  to  profit  under  the 
growth  of  nineteenth   century  Liberalism. 

In  all  this  movement  Jews  had  directly  very 
little  influence,  though,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
political  theories  of  Bodin  and  Spinoza  and  the 
general  sceptical  movement  headed  by  Montaigne 
affected  public  opinion  that  was  ultimately  to  be 
enshrined  in  law.^  But  their  indirect  influence 
was  the  greater;  they  were  the  supreme  example 
of  fidelity  to  creed,  notwithstanding  the  attempts 
of  the  different  states  to  crush  or  entice  them. 
Their  steadfastness,  combined  with  the  influence 
of  their  own  Scriptures,  served  as  an  example  for 
the  resolute  Protestants,  who  declined  to  be  forced 
into    belief    in    the    dominant    creed.      Religious 

^  Montaigne's  sceptical  influence,  however,  was  individual,  not 
Jewish,  though  his  views  on  toleration  were,  doubtless,  influenced 
by  his  mixed  relationships. 

318 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

liberty  has  been  rightly  described  as  the  parent 
of  poHtical  Hberty;  but  tor  the  clashing  of  the 
sects,  the  forces  of  absolutism  would  have  crushed 
out  both  political  and  religious  liberty,  as  they  did 
in  France  and  Spain,  And  religious  liberty  is  of 
even  more  spiritual  consequence  than  political, 
since  it  keeps  alive  the  principle  that  there  are 
certain  spiritual  ideals  without  which  life  itself  is 
not  worth  living.  The  Jews  have  been  the 
supreme  example  of  devotion  to  this  ideal,  and 
have  been  silent,  though  effective,  martyr  wit- 
nesses, not  so  much  of  their  own  truth  but  of  the 
supreme  value  of  the  ideal  element  in  human 
nature  and  development. 

It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  ideals  of 
religious  and  political  liberty,  which  have  thus 
been  gained  through  so  much  blood  and  tears, 
will  be  preserved  intact  against  the  rising  forces 
of  the  reaction  and  counter-revolution  v/hich  are, 
at  bottom,  an  attempt  at  a  revival  of  the  Church- 
Empire.  The  slogan,  "One  God,  one  king,  one 
people,"  has  again  been  raised,  and  armies  that 
are  nations  in  arms  are  in  movement  to  the  cry. 
Anti-Semitism  is  largely  the  result  of  this  reac- 
tion, and  while  it  is  dominant  in  the  councils  of 
certain  nations,   Jews   must   once   more   take   up 

319 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

their  role  of  martyrs  to  the  wider  truth.  Nowa- 
days, however,  they  do  not  fight  alone,  and  it  is 
scarcely  possible  that,  in  Western  Europe  and 
in  lands  dominated  by  Western  European  ideals, 
they  can  be  re-interned  in  their  ghetti.  But  the 
Colossus  of  the  North  still  retains  the  mediseval 
ideal  of  the  Church-Empire,  and  while  that  con- 
trols Russian  State  policy,  Jews  will  have  to 
suffer,  in  all  the  Russias,  indignities  and  disa- 
bilities from  which  they  have  been  freed  in  the 
lands  of  true  civilization  and  religious  liberty. 

The  ideal  of  the  unified  Church-State  has  been 
shattered  by  the  assaults  of  modern  criticism  and 
the  growth  of  true  religious  liberty.  But  the  con- 
ception of  all  the  citizens  of  a  compact  territory 
animated  by  the  same  ideals  still  retains  its  attrac- 
tion; only  the  unification  nowadays  is  with  regard 
to  the  goal  rather  than  to  the  roads  that  lead  to 
it.  In  other  words,  the  Welfare  State  (inter- 
preting welfare  as  spiritual  as  well  as  material) 
is  taking  the  place  of  the  Church-State  of  the 
Middle  Ages  and  of  Reformation  times.  What 
then  is  to  become  of  the  separate  Churches  or  re- 
ligious bodies  which  are  found  in  profusion  In 
modern  states?  That  is  the  sole  ecclesiastical 
problem  which  the  modern  statesman  has  to  face. 

320 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

Except  among  the  extreme  parties,  such  as  the 
Ultramontanes,  the  obvious  solution  would  seem 
to  be  that  given  by  the  modern  federal  constitu- 
tion in  which  each  state  (in  this  case  Church) 
has  a  corporate  life  of  its  own  over  which  it  has 
autonomous  control,  except  in  any  case  where  this 
conflicts  with  the  general  federal  ideals.  The 
Jewish  Synagogue  may  rightly  claim  its  place 
among  these  Churches  within  the  state  as  having 
its  part  in  promoting  the  general  welfare/ 

Owing  to  their  medieeval  disabilities,  Jews, 
though  sharing,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  higher 
life  and  in  the  commerce  of  Europe,  were  yet 
kept  in  a  kind  of  enclave  in  each  of  the  Euro- 
pean nations,  and  thus  acted,  both  intellectually 
and  economically,  as  a  separate  body  with  dis- 
tinctive tendencies  caused  by  their  isolation  and 
disabilities.  Accordingly,  we  have  been  able  in 
the  preceding  pages  to  estimate  roughly  the  part 
taken  by  the  Jews  as  a  body  in  the  various  move- 
ments   which    have    made    European    civilization 

*  In  this  connection  the  title  of  Dr.  Figgis's  latest  book,  Tlie 
Churches  in  the  State,  is  significant  as  contrasted  with  the  older 
treatise  of  Innes,  Church  and  State.  Dr.  Figgis  has  been  largely 
influenced  by  the  views  of  Maitland  and  Giercke  on  the  claims 
to  independent  life  of  the  Unwersitas,  or  Genossenschaft,  as 
against  the  Societas,  or  limited  liability  company. 

321 


JEWISH    CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    CIVILIZATION 

what  it  is  to-day.  In  all  these  movements  (ex- 
cept possibly  one,  the  French  Revolution)  we  have 
seen  the  Jews,  as  Jews,  contributing  toward  Eu- 
ropean culture  while  sharing  in  it  themselves. 
Their  monotheistic  views  and  liturgic  practices 
were  the  foundation  of  the  mediaeval  Church, 
both  in  creed  and  deed.  By  their  connection  with 
their  brethren  in  the  East  and  their  tolerated  ex- 
istence, both  in  Islam  and  in  Christendom,  they 
helped  toward  that  transmission  of  Oriental 
thought,  science,  and  commerce,  which  had  so 
large  an  influence  on  the  Middle  Ages  and  led  on 
to  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reform,  in  both  of 
which  movements  Jews  had  their  direct  part  to 
play.  So,  too,  in  the  struggle  for  religious  liberty 
and  in  the  different  stages  of  toleration,  which  lay 
at  the  root  of  political  liberty,  Jews  had  their 
part  to  play,  and,  when  freed  from  their  shackles 
by  the  French  Revolution,  took  a  leading  role  both 
in  nineteenth  century  Liberalism  and  in  the  Col- 
lectivism which  has  now  replaced  it. 

But,  when  fully  emancipated,  Jews  no  longer 
acted  in  the  European  world  of  ideas  collectively, 
but  as  Individuals,  often  choosing  opposite  Ideals 
and,  in  most  cases,  applying  the  talents  thus  let 
free   to   objects  apart   from   the   general   political 

322 


JEWS    AND    LIBERALISM 

or  religious  movements  of  the  time.  Great  as 
has  been  the  influence  of  Jews  in  their  collective 
capacity  on  the  development  of  European  thought 
and  culture  up  to  the  present  day,  it  is  possible 
that  their  influence  as  individuals,  during  the  past 
fifty  years,  has  been  even  more  extensive,  though 
less  discernible,  owing  to  the  absence  of  any  gen- 
eral direction  to  Jewish  intellectuality.  The  re- 
markable outburst  of  Jewish  talent,  which  has 
been  so  striking  a  characteristic  since  the  age  of 
emancipation,  will  form  the  subject  of  our  next 
Book. 


323 


INDEX 


Aaron  of  Lincoln,  208. 
Abaelard,   167. 

Abarbanel,  Don  Judah,   180,   181. 
Abigdor,  Abraham,  159. 
Abraham,   a  Jew,  assists  Ralph  of 

Bruges,   146. 
Abraham  bar  Hiyya,  146,  149,  166, 

184. 
Abrahams,   Israel,  261. 
Acosta,  Uriel,  291. 
Acton,  Lord,  271,  305. 
Adler,   V.,   309. 
yEschylus,  81. 
^sop's  Fables,  64. 
Afer,   Constantinus,    153,    182,   203. 
Agrippa,  Cornelius,  176. 
Al-Battani,  151,  152. 
Albertus,    Magnus,    165,    170,    172, 

173,   181,   186. 
Albucasis,   154. 
Alcuin,  188. 
Alexander  of  Hales,  164,  170,  171, 

172,   186,  188. 
Alexander  II.,  Czar  of  Russia,  33. 
Al-Farghani,   146,  152. 
Alfonsi,  Petrus,  155. 
Alfonsine  Tables,  151. 
Alfonso    X.,   of   Castile,    145,    151, 

152- 
Alfred  the  Englishman,   145. 
Alfred,   King,   Dooms  of,   65. 
Al-Ghazali,   166. 

Al-Harizi,  Judah,    146,    164,    167. 
Al-Heitham,   152. 
Al-Khwarizmi,  Muhammed,  149. 
Al-Kindi,    152,   203. 
Allard,  Jean,  burning  of,  276. 
Al-Mas'udi,   155,  203. 


Al-Zarkali,  Ibrahim,  146,   151. 

Anabaptists,   the,  273. 

Andrew,     a     Jew,     Michael     Scot's 

dragoman,   145,    156,   184. 
Angell,  Norman,  86,  109. 
Anselm,   167,   186. 
Antiochus  Epiphanes,   14. 
Anti-Semitism,    9,    13,    14,    16,    18, 
27,  28,  29,  35,  38,  54,  87,  88, 
240,  302,  313,  314,  318. 
Aptowitzer,  V.,  94. 
Aquinas,    Thomas,    165,    170,    172, 

173,   181,   186,  206. 
Aristotle,   143,    156,    166,    168,    169, 

172. 
Arminians,  the,  270. 
Arnold,    Matthew,   64,    178. 
Arnstein,  Baroness  von,  301. 
Aranicus,  Jacob,  alchemist,   162. 
Ashley,  W.  J.,  207,  237. 
Atonement,   doctrine   of,   97. 
Auerbach,   B.,    178. 
Augustine's    De    Civitate   Dei,    95. 
Augustus,    Philip,   210. 
Austin,   283. 

Aven  Deuth;   see  John  of  Seville. 
Avenzoar,   146,   is.\,   :sS. 
Averroes,    146,    154,   156,    157,    166, 

177,   180,    184. 
Averroism,  143,  156,  179. 
Avicebrol,    169;    see    aL,o    Ibn    Ga- 

birol. 
Avicebrom,    169;   see  also   Ibn  Ga- 

birol. 
Avicebron,  169,   170,   171,    186;  see 

also  Ibn   Gabirol. 
Avicenna,  166,  171,  203. 


325 


INDEX 


Bacon,  Roger,    145,   146,    i50b   156, 

179,  188. 
Bagehot,  84. 
Bahya,   144.  166. 
Ballin,   A.,  241. 
Balmes,    Abraham     de,     152,     iS7 

184. 
Baltimore,  Lord,  287. 
Balzac,  H.,  241. 
Bamberger,   Ludwig,  2.-J,   313- 
Bardi,  the,   220. 
Bardsley's    Curiosities    of    Puritan 

Nomenclature,   67. 
Baring,  Sir  Francis,  238,  239.  240. 
Barnato,   Barnett,  243. 
Barrett,  203. 
Bassevi,    Joseph,    of    Prague,    225, 

226. 
Bayle,  290. 
Baynes,  A.,  289. 
Beaulieu,  Leroy,  44- 
Beauvais,  Vincent  of,  162. 
Beazley,   197. 
Beck,  J.  J.,   129. 
Beck,  Karl,  304. 
Behain,   Martin,    159- 
Behrends,  Leffmann,  227. 
Beit,  Alfred,  56. 
Belloc,  Hilaire,  31. 
Below,  265. 

Benjamin  of  Tudela,  161,  i97- 
Bentham,  Jeremy,  303. 
Bentinck,  Lord  George,  311. 
Bergson,  Henri,  46,  172,  I79- 
Bernard,  167. 
Bernstein,  E.,  309. 
Bevis,    Sir,    of    Hamton,    romance 

of,  182. 
Bickells,  Messc  iind  Pascha,  91. 
Bidpai,  Fables  of,   148,   154. 
Binncy's  sermons,  262. 
Bischoffheims,  the,  242. 
Bismarck,    Otto    von,    27,    28,    30, 

33,  36,  41.  306,  313. 
Black  Death,  132,  134,  212,  216. 


Bleichroeders,  the,  242. 

Bluntschli,   305. 

Boccaccio,   156. 

Bodin,    Jean,    21,    141,    281,    285, 

291,  318. 
Boehme,  Jakob,  176. 
Boetius,   168. 

Bonacosa,  a  Jew  of  Padua,   154. 
Booth,  A.  J.,  309. 
Borne,  Ludwig,  31,  299,  3001,  301, 

302,  303. 
Bouquet,  legal  historian,   129. 
Bourgelot,  21 1, 
Bossuet,  270. 
Bourse,  the,  2:1,  255. 
Bovobnch,  182. 
Bracciolati,  Poggio,   180. 
Brandes,  G.,  305. 
Brewer,  145. 

Brixia,  Johannes  de,   146, 
Brodskys,  the,  242. 
Bromet,  Herz,  294. 
Broughton,  Hugh,  273. 
Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  276. 
Browning,   Robert,   iii. 
Bruno,  Giordano,   177,  179,  180. 
Buddha,  religion  of,  80. 
Burckhardt,  49,  180. 
Burk,   Edmund,  47. 
Burton's  Anatomy   of  Melancholy, 

181. 
Buxtorfs,  the,  Hebraists,  273. 
Byron,  178,  24a. 

Cahorsins,  the,   211,  212. 

Calo,  Maestro;  see  Kalonymos  ben 

Kalonymos. 
Calvin,  278. 
Calvinism,  96. 
Calvinists,  the,  270. 
Cantor,   Georg,    149. 
Cardan,   176. 
Carlbach,  J.,  160. 
Carvajal,   Ferdinand,  222. 
Cassel,   Ernest,   56. 
Castro,  Orobio  de,  291. 


32G 


INDEX 


Chamber's  Mediwjal  Stage,  64. 
Chamberlain,  Houston  Stewart,  31, 

41.  42,  45,   51,   57,   66,   77,   81, 

83,  84,   106,  III,  182,  183,  201, 

303. 
Charlemagne,  123. 
Charles  of  .Vnjovi,  144,  154. 
Chesterton,  Gilbert  K.,  40. 
Chrysostom,   St.  John,   102. 
Cicero,   180. 
Claflin,  H.  B.,  266. 
Clement  VI.,  Pope,  159. 
Cobb,  S.  H.,  287. 
Coin,  E.,  206. 
Coit,  Stanton,  40. 
Colbert,  284,  288. 
Coleridge,    178. 
Coke's  Report,   120. 
Columbus,    Christopher,    151,    159, 

185,  219. 
Confucius,  99. 
Conybeare,  F.   C,  98. 
Cotton,   John,   275. 
Coulanges,  chauvinism  of,  27. 
Council   of   Elvira,    118. 
Creighton,   Bishop,  278. 
Crescas,  Ilasdai,   177 
Cresqucs,  JafTuda,   160,   161. 
Cremieux,   Adolphe,   304. 
Cromwell,    23,    223,    284,   288,   296, 

317. 
Cunningham,  254. 
Curtze,  M.,   160. 

D'Aguilar,  Moses,  234,  235. 

Dahn,  chauvinism  of,  zy. 

Dante,  175,  180,  212,  262. 

Darmesteter,  James,   log. 

David,    Felicien,    308. 

De  Goeje,   M.  J.,   194,   197. 

D'Eichthal,   Gustave,   308. 

Delitzsch,    Friedrich,    yy. 

De     Pass     Brothers,     ship-owners, 

243. 
Descartes,  177. 
Devic,  203. 


327 


Diaconus,  Paulus,  193. 

Dicey 's  law,  311. 

Diderot,  290-,  302. 

Disraeli,    Benjamin,    24,    305,    306, 

3". 
Diestel,  49. 
Dietz,  A.,  288. 

Dobschiitz,  E.  von,  70,  71,  72,  276. 
Dollinger,  305. 
Douay  Version,  70. 
Dozy,  R.,  203. 
Draper,     historian     of     philosophy, 

183. 
Dreyfus,   Captain   Alfred,   32,  314. 
Drumont,  E.,   106,   107. 

Ebionites,  the,  10'2. 

Ehrenberg,   R.,  220,  232,  238,  255. 

Eliot,  George,  178. 

Ellis,    Havelock,    52. 

Elvira,  Council  of,   118. 

Emanuel  ben  Jacob,   151. 

Emden,  Jacob,  291. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  291. 

Enfantin,  308. 

Engelmann,  203. 

Ense,  Varnhagen  von,  300. 

Epstein,  M.,  247. 

Es-Saffah,  Caliph,   147,  148. 

Evans,  277. 

Eybeschuetz,   Jonathan,  291. 

Faradj,  Moses,  153. 

Favaro,   151. 

Fekar,  B.,  206. 

Ferrer,  St,  Vincent,  218. 

Ferrer  Riots,  219. 

Fichte,  178,  306. 

Field,  Marshall,  266. 

Figgis,  J.  N.,  67,  141,  2S1,  312. 

Firdausi,  epic  of,  80. 

Fludd,  R.,   176. 

Fouque,  300. 

France,   Marie   de,   fables  of,    182. 

Frederick  II.,  145. 

Freudenthal,  on  Leipzig  fairs,  231. 

Friedlaender,  I.,   194. 


INDEX 


Friedlander-Fuld,  242. 
Friedlander,  G.,  99. 
Friedlanders,  the,  251. 
Froude,  178. 

Fuggers,  the,  220,  232,  254. 
Fuld,  Jewish  banker,   239. 
Funk,   Catholic  theologian,  207. 

Gaius,   Institute  of,  61. 

Galen,  143,   153. 

Gama,  Vasco  da,   159. 

Garrison,  F.  H.,  158. 

Gehenna,  notion  of,  97. 

Geiger,   L.,  272. 

Gentz,    Friedrich   von,    300. 

Gerard  of  Cremona,   145,  150,  153, 

168. 
Gershom,  Rabbi,  of  Mayence,  134. 
Gersonides;   see   Levi   ben   Gerson, 
Ghinkhiz  Khan,   197. 
Gideon,  Sampson,  235. 
Giercke,   legal    historian,    126,   141, 

321. 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  305. 
Gliickel  of  Hameln,  62,  263. 
Gobineau,  race-theory  of,  45. 
Goethe,  W.,  178,  260,  300. 
Goldberg,  Miss  Adelaide,   188. 
Goldsmid;    see   Mocatta   and  Gold- 

smid. 
Goldsmid,  Abraham,  238. 
Goltz,  von  der,  86. 
Gooch,  67. 

Gospel  lectures,  118. 
Graetz,  H.,  294. 

Gregoire,  Abbe,  memoirs  of,  23. 
Gregorian  music,  64. 
Gregory,  Pope,  200. 
Gregory  of  Tours,   200. 
Gresham,   Sir  Thomas,  228. 
Grimani,  Cardinal,   152. 
Gross,   Charles,  215. 
Grunwald,  M.,  234. 
Guggenheim,  firm  of,  244. 
Gundisalvi,   Dominic,   164,   168. 
Guttmann,  J.,   165,   169,  174. 


Gutzkow,  300. 
Guyau,  109. 

Hadley,   159. 

Haeckel,   178.- 

Haftarot,    118. 

Hakluyt,  203. 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  272, 

Hammer,   197. 

Hanseatic  League,  257. 

Harnack,  Adolf,  49,  94,  96,  loi. 

Harris,  Rendell,  100. 

Hartmann,  !Moritz,  299,  303,  304. 

Harun,  al-Raschid,   123. 

Hatch,  E.,  49,  93. 

Haynes,  E.  S.  P.,  278. 

Heffter,   legal  historian,   115. 

Hegel,  178,  305. 

Heine,  Heinrich,  31,  46,  239,  295, 
299,  300,  301,  302,  303,  308. 

Helmont,  von,   176. 

Hep-hep  riots,  24. 

Hermann,  the  German,  145. 

Herwegh,  303. 

Herz,    Henriette,   300. 

Herzl,  Theodor,  62. 

Higher  Anti-Semitism;  see  Anti- 
Semitism. 

Hill,  J.  J.,  266. 

Hillel,  99,  240. 

Hippocrates,  153. 

Hirsch,  Baron  M.  de,  242. 

Hispalensis,  Johannes,  152,  164, 
168. 

Hoadley,  21. 

Hobbes,  Thomas,  21,  177,  285. 

Hobson,  J.  A.,  249. 

Hoffmann,  M.,  206,  210,  215,  263. 

Hof-Jude,  the,  225,  226,  227,  232, 

2iZ,    2Z7. 

Hollander,  J.  H,,  109. 
Horace,  81. 

Hoschander,  Jacob,  14. 
Hugo,  Victor,  300. 
Humboldt,  Wilhelm  von,  300. 


328 


INDEX 


Ibn  Adret,  Responsa  of,  135. 

Ibn  Daud;  see  John  of  Seville. 

Ibn  Daud,  Abraham,   166. 

Ibn  Ezra,  Abraham,  144,  147,  152, 
155. 

Ibn  Fakih,  197. 

Ibn  Gabirol,  164,  166,  169,  170, 
185. 

Ibn  Khordadhbeh,  122,  138,  194, 
198. 

Ibn  Makir,  Jacob,  146,  152,  159, 
185. 

Ibn  Sid,   Isaac,   151. 

Ibn  Tibbon,  Moses,  164,   167. 

Ibn  Tibbon  family,   144. 

Ibn  Usaibi'a,   157. 

Ibn  Wakkar,  Joseph,  151. 

Ibn  Ya'kub,  Ibrahim,   197. 

Ibn  Zaddik,  Joseph,    166, 

Ibn  Zuhr;  see  Avenzoar. 

Immanuel   of   Rome,   46. 

Jnnes,  author  of  State  and  Church, 
321. 

Innocent  III.,  Pope,  17,  122. 

Isaac,  a  Jew,  sent  by  Charle- 
magne, 123. 

Isaacs,  Nathaniel,  243. 

Israeli,  Isaac,  of  Toledo,  151,  158, 
i8s,  203. 

Istakhri,  203. 

Jacob,    a    Jew,    assists    Paravitius, 

146. 
Jacob  Aronicus,  alchemist,  162. 
Jacob,  G.,   197. 
Jacobs,  J.,   13s,  148,  210. 
Jacob's  Staff,  139,  161,  176,  185. 
Jacoby,  Johann,  299,  303,  304. 
Jansenism,  96. 
Jastrow,  Morris,  78,  79. 
Jellinek,  Adolph,  304. 
Jenks,  E.,  legal  historian,  117,  124, 

20'5. 

Jesus,  99,   100,   108. 


Joel,    Rabbi,   translator   of    Indian 

tales,  155. 
Joel,  M.,  165,  171. 
John  of  Capua,  convert,  153.   154. 
John  of  Salisbury,   167,   188. 
John    of    Seville,    a    convert,    146, 

148,  149,  184. 
Joselmann  of  Rosheim,  225. 
Joseph   family,   the,   243. 
Josephus,   12,    loi,   191. 
Jourdain,   169. 
Judaea,  Maria,   162. 
Judasus,  Isaac,   153. 
Judah   al-Harizi,    146,    164,   167. 
Judah  ha-Levi,   144,  166,  183. 
Julian,   emperor,  77. 
Julius  of  Salerno,  182. 
Juster,  J.,   191,   193. 
Justinian,   Institutes   of,   61. 
Justinian,  Novella  of,  200. 
Justinian,  Corpus  Juris  of,  261. 
Juvenal,  13. 

Kabbalah,  the,   175,   176,   177,   179, 

185,  260,  272,  276. 
Kalara,  the,   166. 
Kalonymos    ben    Kalonymos,     152, 

157. 
Kant,   Immanuel,   78,   177,   178. 
Karpinsky,  L.  C,  147. 
Kayserling,  M.,  152. 
Kedushah,  91. 
Key,  Ellen,  301. 
Kikuchi,   Baron  Dairoku,  88. 
Kimhi,  273. 

King  James'  Version,  70. 
Kingdom  of  Heaven,  9s,  99. 
Kuenen,  A.,  107. 
Kuhn,  Loeb  &  Co.,  firm  of,  242. 

Lagarde,  Paul  de,  94. 
Lammens,  D.,  203,  204. 
Lamprecht,  historian,  210. 
Lasker,  Eduard,  27,  28,  313. 
Lassalle,  Ferdinand,  309,  313. 


329 


INDEX 


Lassen,  yT. 

Lateran  Council,   122. 

Latis,   Bonet  de,    16a. 

La  Vega,  Joseph  de,  229. 

Lazards,   the,   239. 

Lecky,  historian  of  philosophy,  49, 

183,  289. 
Leclerc,   157. 
Lehmann,   Behrend,  227. 
Leibnitz,  177. 
Leon,  Messer,  180. 
Leone    Hebreo,    Messer,    181;    see 

also  Abarbanel. 
Lesseps,  Ferdinand  de,  308. 
Lessing,    author     of    Nathan     der 
IVeise,  23,  79,  178. 

Levi,  Asser,  266. 

Levi   ben    Gerson,    159,    160,    161, 
176,  185. 

Levin,   Rahel,  300,  301, 

Levita,  Elijah,  272. 

Levy,  Louis-Germain,  174. 

Levy,  S.,  93. 

Lewisohn,  firm  of,  244. 

L'Hopital,  Michel,  21,  281. 

Liebmann,  Jost,   227. 

Lightfoot,    English   Hebraist,   273. 

Locke,  John,  21,  275,  285,  286. 

Loeb,    Isidore,   85,    157. 

Lombards,  the,   2:1,   212,   216. 

Lopez,  Aaron,  244. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  57. 

Luard,  editor  of  Matt.   Paris,  211. 

Luca,  John,  151. 

Lucretius,  81. 

Lully,  Raymond,  175,  179,  181. 

Luther,  Martin,  70,   133,  175,  176, 
273. 

Lyon,  Abraham  de,  244. 

Lyra,  N.  de,  273. 

Macaulay,  Lord,  23. 
Macpherson,   252. 
Madox.  legal  historian,  126. 
Magellan,  159. 


Magnus,    Albertus,    163,    170,    172, 

173,    181,    186. 
Maimonides,   Moses,  46,    144,    153, 
158,    162,    164,    166,    167,    168, 
171,    172,    173,    174,    176,    177, 
179.   185,   186. 

Maitland,  legal  historian,  113,  116, 
126,  141,  321. 

Mamran,  a  legal  document,  255. 

Manasseh  ben  Israel,  273,  2S8. 

Mannetti,  Agnolo,    180. 

Mannetti,    Giannozzo,    180. 

Manoello,  friend  of  Dante,  180; 
see  also  Immanuel  of  Rome. 

Mantino,  Jacob,  137,  184. 

Marcuses,  the,  251. 

Markgraf,  on  Leipzig  fairs,  231. 

Marks,  Samuel,  243. 

Marranos,  the,  213,  218,  219,  222, 
223,  228,  245,  237,  264,  284, 
291. 

Marryatt,   Captain,  231, 

Marx,  Karl,  43,  299,  309. 

Mashallah,  Jewish  Arabian  astrol- 
oger, 162. 

Maurus  of  Salerno,  182. 

Maynus,  Magister,  146. 

Mazzini,  74,  304. 

Mecia,   160, 

Medigo,  Elia  del,   137,  184. 

Medina,  Sir  Solomon,  225. 

Meisels,  Moses,  226. 

Meissner,   Alfred,   304. 

Melancthon,   176. 

Mendelssohn,  Dorothea,  299,  300. 

Mendelssohn,  Henriette,  299. 

Mendelssohn,  Moses,  291,  299. 

Mendelssohns,  the,  251. 

Merton,  Walter  de,  116. 

Messer,   Leon,   180. 

Messiah,  notion  of,  92,  97. 

Metternich,   Prince,  299. 

Michelet,   chauvinism  of,  27. 

Mill.  J.  S.,  308. 

Alirabeau,  294. 


330 


INDEX 


Mirandola,    Pico   de    la,    151,    157» 

17s,  180. 
Moccata     and     Goldsmid,     bullion 

brokers,  222. 
Model,  Marx,  227. 
Moltke,  86. 
Mommsen,  Th.,   31, 
Mond,   Ludwig,   56. 
Monds,  the,  241. 
Montagu,  firm  of,   240,  243. 
Montaigne,     Michel    de,    21,    281, 

289,  290,  291,  318. 
Montanism,   102. 
Montefiore,  Claude  G,,  97. 
Montefiore,  Sir  Moses,  238. 
Mordecai,  Abraham,  266. 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  285. 
Morgan,  E.  D.,  266. 
Morton,  Levi,  266. 
Mosenthals,   the,   243. 
Moses,  the  laws  of,  66. 
Moses  of  Oxford,   116. 
Moses  ben   Maimon;   sec   Maimon- 

ides. 
Moulton,  R.  G.,  86. 
Muhammed,  64,   121. 
Muller,  Max,  83. 
Munk,  Salomon,  170. 
Murray,  J.  R.,  155- 
Murray's  History  of  Chess.  81. 
Mutawakkil,  Emir,    17. 

Nantes,  Edict  of,  280,  288,  317. 
Napoleon,   22,   238,   251,   295,   296, 

297,  298,  312,  318. 
Napoleon,   Sanhedrin  of,  296. 
Nathan,  Ernesto,  304. 
Nathan,  Signora,  304. 
Neuman,  A.  A.,  13s. 
Newburg,  Philip,  266. 
Nicaea,  Council  of,   102. 
Nietzsche,    Friedrich,   40,    85,    170. 
Nunes,  Dr.,  244. 

331 


Occam,    188. 
Omar,   Caliph,    17. 
Oppenheimer,   Emanuel,   226, 
Oppenheimer,  Joseph  Siiss,  227. 
Oppenheimer,     Samuel,    226,    233, 

234,  233. 
Oppenheimers,  the,  225. 
Oppenheims,  the,  239. 
Ordination,  94. 
Orr,  J.,  loS. 
Ostwald,  178. 

Paine,  Tom,  286. 

Paracelsus,   176. 

Paravitius,   146. 

Paris,  Matt,  211. 

Parma,  M.,  308, 

Pascal's  Pensees,  273. 

Paulus  Diaconus,   193. 

Pedro  III.  of  Aragon,  145,  i5i- 

Peiresc,   151. 

Pelavius,    151. 

Penn,  William,   287. 

Pereire,  Isaac,  307. 

Pereire,   Jacob,   307. 

Pereire,  Jacob  Rodrigues,  307. 

Pereires,  the,  240,  242,  307. 

Pfefferkorn,  a  convert,  272. 

PhilO',   10 1. 

Pigeonneau,  204. 

Pisa,  Leonardo  di,   149. 

Plants,  John   de,    146. 

Plato,  81. 

Plato  of  Tivoli,  146,   i49- 

Poliakoffs,  the,  242. 

Pollock,    Sir    Frederick,    49,     iiS, 

1 16,  141,  278. 
Polo,  Marco,  161. 
Pomponati,  180. 
Pomponazzi,   289, 
Pope,  J.  E.,  245. 
Port-Royalists,   the,  270. 
Powell,  York,  210. 
Presbyterians,  the,   270. 
Prescobaldi,  the,  220. 


INDEX 


Prothero's  The  Psalms  in  History 

and  Biography,  91. 
Ptolemy,  Almagest  of,   150. 

Quintilian,   180. 

Rachfahl,  F.,  265. 

Radanites,  the,  123,   138,  147,   194. 

196,    197,    198,    199,   202,   203, 

204. 
Raffalovitch,  Madame,  301. 
Ralph  of  Bruges,  146. 
Rashi,  273. 
Rathenau,  242. 
Raymond,    archbishop    of    Toledo, 

144,   168. 
Reinach,  T.,   191,  206. 
Regiomontanus,    159,    181. 
Renan,  Ernest,    13,  28,  41,  42,  74, 

77,    102,    156,    157,    178,    184, 

260,   309. 
Reuchlin,  J.,   175,  272,  276. 
Rhazes,  Arabic  writer  on  medicine, 

153- 
Ricardo's  iron  law,  309. 
Ridgeway,  204. 
Ritter,     historian     of     philosophy, 

170,  197. 
Rivera,  Jacob,  244. 
Robert  of  Anjou,   143,   152. 
Robert  the  Englishman,  160. 
Robinson,    108. 
Rockefeller,  J.   D.,  266. 
Rodrigues,   Eugene,    307. 
Rodrigues,   Olinde,   307. 
Roger  of  Parma,   182. 
Roland,   Madame,   299. 
Roland  of  Parma,  182. 
Romano,  Giuda,  180. 
Roscher,   legal   historian,   215,   257. 
Rothschild,  Baron  James  de,  241. 
Rothschild,   Mayer,  226. 
Rothschild,  Mayer  Amschel,  237- 
Rothschild,  Nathan,  237,  238,  250. 

332 


ivDt.hschild's,     the,     32,     239,    240, 

242,  301,  314. 
Rousseau,  21,  275,  295. 
Russell,   B.,    177. 

Saadya,  144,  166. 

Sacrobosco,  181. 

Sadi,  mystic  poet,  80. 

St.  Bernard,  106,  128. 

St.   Cyril,  bishop,   16. 

St.  Francis,  87. 

St.  Simon,  307,  308,  309. 

St.  Simonism,  308,  309. 

Saladin  of  Parma,   182. 

Sanhedrin  of  Napoleon,  296, 

Saphir,  209,  303. 

Saracens,   the,    123,    143,  201,  304. 

Savasorda;       sec      Abraham      bar 

Hiyya. 
Sayce,   A.   H.,    182. 
Scaliger,    151. 
Schechter,  Frank  I.,  n6. 
Schelling,  178,  300. 
Scherer,   legal   historian,    11.5,   215. 
Schiller-Szinessy,  S.   M.,  304. 
Schlegel,  Friedrich  von,  300. 
Schleiden,  49. 
Schleiermacher,  178,  ^^^o. 
Schmoller,   G.,    229,   236,   237,   251. 
Schopenhauer,  A.,  170. 
Schubert,   Benedict,  266. 
Schueck,  A.,   159. 
Schiirer,  E.,  191. 
Scot,  Michael,   145,    146,   150,   156, 

181,   184. 
Scotus,  Duns,  170,  181.  188. 
Scotus,  John,   188. 
Selden,  John,  273. 
Seligmans  the,  239. 
Semikah,  94. 
Servetus,   179,  288. 
Shakespeare,  William,   270. 
Shaler,      Prof.,     author      of      The 

Neighbor. 
Shammai,   240. 


INDEX 


Shelley,  178. 

Simon  ben  Shetah,  93. 

Singer,   Paul,   309. 

Skeat,  203. 

Skinner,  J.,    108. 

Smith,  D.  E.,  147. 

Smith,  A.  L.,  135. 

Socinianism,  283. 

Sombart,    Werner,    48,    215,    228, 

229,  247-267. 
Sozzini,  Fausto,  283. 
Sozzini,  Lelio,  283. 
Spencer,  Herbert,   178. 
Speyer,  Edgar,  56. 
Speyers,   the,  239. 
Spinoza,   Baruch,    21,  46,   49,   170, 

177,    178,    179,    185,   260,   284, 

285,  288,  318. 
Stael,  Madame  de,  299. 
Stahl,    Friedrich    Julius.    24,    305, 

306,  313. 
Steckelmacher,  M.,  255,  263. 
Stein,  L.,  177. 

Steinschneider,    Moritz,    140,    142, 
■148,    149,    151,    157,    158,    162, 

181,  188. 
Steinthal,  78,  80. 
Stephen,  Leslie,  289,  308. 
Sterns,  the,  239,  240. 
Stevenson,   Robert  Louis,  86. 
Stoecker,  Adolf,  28. 
Stoeckl,  A.,  28,   175,   186. 
Straus,  Oscar   S.,  68,  287. 
Strozzi,  the,  220,  232. 
Stuyvesant,  Peter,  287. 
Sufism,   175. 

Surenhus,  Dutch  Hebraist,  273. 
Siisskind     von     Trimberg,     Jewish 

Minnesinger,  182. 
Swift,  J.,  290. 

Tacitus,   13. 

Tarascon,  Bonfils  de;  see  Emanuel 

ben  Jacob. 
Taylor,  C.,   100. 


Taylor,  H.  O.,  168. 
Tennant,  95. 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  263. 
Theodosian  code,  118. 
Treitschke,    Heinrich    von,    30,   31, 

41,  302. 
Trisagion,  91. 
Tugendbund,  the,  300. 

Ulfilas,   translator   of   the   Gospels, 

70. 
Ultramontanes,  the,  321. 

Vasco  da  Gama,   1 59. 
Vechino,  Joseph.   151. 
Veit,  Moritz,  308. 
Veits,  the,  251. 
Villanova,  Arnold  de,  183. 
Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  1601. 
Virchovv,    31. 
Visigoth   kings,    12 j. 
Vogel,  Sir  Julius,  243. 
Voltaire,  21,  290,  30^. 

Waetjen,  H.,  253. 
Wagner,   Richard,   182. 
Waitz,  chauvinism   of,   27. 
Waldegrave,   Countess,   301, 
Warburgs,  the,  239. 
Ward,  Sir  A.  W.,  305. 
Weber,. Max,  258. 
Weigel,  German  mystic,   176. 
Weill,  Georges,  309. 
Wellesley,  Lord,  238. 
Wernber,   Beit  &  Co.,   243. 
Wertheimer,  Samson.  226. 
Wertheimer,  Samuel,  226. 
Wertheimer,   Wolf,  226. 
Wertheimers,  the,  225,  234. 
William  of  Auvergne,  164,  169. 
William  the   Conqueror,    124. 
William  the  Fleming,   145. 
Williams,  Roger,  244,  287. 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  65. 


333 


INDEX 

Wiseman,  Cardinal,   70.  Yezdegird  II.,   persecution  of,    15. 

Wittmann,  historian  of  philosophy,  Yeser  ha-Ra' ,   100. 

171.  Young,   Arthur,   252. 

Wolf,  G.,  226.  Yule's  Glossary,  203,  204. 

Wolf,  L.,  224.  ZwiHglians,  the,  270. 

Wocher,      the,      Jewish      itinerant  Zacuto,  Abraham,   151,   160. 

agents,  231.  Zola,  £.,  240. 

Worms,  Jacob,  225.  Zunz,  Leopold,   161,  304. 


334 


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